World

MOSCOW — Russia on Thursday named nine US government-sponsored news outlets likely to be labelled "foreign agents" under a new law that is being rushed through parliament in response to what Moscow says is unacceptable US pressure on Russian media.

Russia's lower house of parliament approved the law — allowing Moscow to force foreign media to brand news they provide to Russians as the work of "foreign agents" and to disclose their funding sources — on Wednesday.

The legislation needs approval from the upper house of parliament, which is likely to happen next week, and the signature of President Vladimir Putin before it becomes law.

The Russian justice ministry on Thursday published a list of nine US-backed news outlets that it said could be affected by the changes, which it said in a statement on its website were likely to become law "in the near future".

 It said it had written to the US government-sponsored Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), along with seven separate Russian or local-language news outlets run by RFE/RL.

One of the seven outlets provides news on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, one on Siberia, and one on the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region. Another covers provincial Russia, one is an online TV station, another covers the mostly Muslim region of Tatarstan, and the other is a news portal that fact-checks the statements of Russian officials.

Russia's broadside against US media is part of the fallout from allegations that the Kremlin interfered in the US presidential election last year in favour of Donald Trump.

US intelligence officials accuse the Kremlin of using Russian media organisations it finances to influence US voters, and this week Washington required Russian state broadcaster RT to register a US-based affiliate company as a "foreign agent". 

The Kremlin denies meddling in the election and has said the restrictions on Russian broadcasters in the United States amount to an attack on free speech. The new media law in Russia is retaliation, it says. 

The draft legislation states that Russian authorities can designate foreign media as "foreign agents", making them subject to the same requirements that are applied to foreign-funded non-governmental organisations under a 2012 law.

Under that law, "foreign agents" must include in any information they publish or broadcast to Russian audiences a mention of their "foreign agent" designation.

They also must apply for inclusion in a government register, submit regular reports on their sources of funding, on their objectives, on how they spend their money, and who their managers are.

They can be subject to spot checks by the authorities to make sure they comply with the rules, according to the 2012 law, which has forced some NGOs to close.

RFE/RL said in a statement it did not want to speculate what steps Russia might take against it next, and looked forward to continuing its journalistic work. VOA Director Amanda Bennett has said the station remains committed to providing independent news to global audiences.

KABUL — Afghan opium producers have had a bumper year with output soaring 87 per cent as the area under poppy cultivation hit a record high, the latest annual survey said on Wednesday. 

The price of opium — the lifeblood of the Taliban  — as it left farms in war-torn Afghanistan this year soared by 55 per cent to almost $1.4 billion, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said, helping to fuel the bloody insurgency.

Rising insecurity, lack of government control and corruption were among the key drivers along with unemployment and lack of education, according to the Afghanistan Opium Survey, jointly compiled by the UNODC and Afghanistan’s counter-narcotics ministry.

Potential opium production from this year’s harvest is estimated at 9,000 tonnes, up 87 per cent from the 4,800 tons produced last year, boosted by increased cultivation and better yields.

Over the same period the area under poppy cultivation expanded by 63 per cent to a record 328,000 hectares — topping the previous record of 224,000 hectares in 2014 — with the number of poppy-growing provinces jumping to 24.

Only 10 Afghan provinces are now considered poppy free. 

“The significant levels of opium poppy cultivation and illicit trafficking of opiates will probably further fuel instability, insurgency and increase funding to terrorist groups in Afghanistan,” the report warned. 

“More high quality, low cost heroin will reach consumer markets across the world, with increased consumption and related harms as a likely consequence.”

 Strong increases in cultivation were recorded in almost all major poppy producing provinces, with restive Helmand in the south seeing the biggest rise of 79 per cent. 

Around 60 per cent of the opium poppy cultivation took place in the southern provinces where the Taliban has a strong presence and virtually no eradication took place. 

Helmand remained the top poppy-cultivating province, accounting for 44 per cent of the total, followed by Kandahar, Badghis, Faryab, Uruzgan and Nangarhar — all hotbeds for Taliban or the Daesh terror group activity. 

Poppy eradication nearly doubled to 750 hectares in 14 provinces, compared with 355 hectares in seven provinces the previous year. 

Yet those efforts were dwarfed by the sheer increase in cultivation.

‘Not just an Afghan problem’ 

“This shouldn’t be considered just an Afghan problem,” Deputy Counter-narcotics Minister Jawed Ahmad Qayem told reporters, pointing to the huge demand for opium abroad and the smuggling of precursors into Afghanistan.

“These precursors are not produced internally,” he said.

International donors have spent billions of dollars on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan over the past decade, including efforts to encourage farmers to switch to other cash crops such as saffron. But those efforts have shown little results.

Addiction levels have also risen sharply — from almost nothing under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime — giving rise to a new generation of addicts since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The report also attributed the expansion in poppy cultivation to reduced support from the international community which may have led to fewer socio-economic development opportunities in rural areas. 

Agricultural advances, including the use of solar-powered irrigation systems, fertilisers and pesticides, may have made opium production viable in desert areas and helped to lift the average yield by 15 per cent.

Taliban and Daesh insurgents have stepped up deadly attacks in recent weeks, targeting Afghan security forces, mosques and a television station, in a show of strength as the US deploys more troops and increases air strikes.

The new crops could further swell the coffers of the Taliban, widely likened to a drug cartel, enabling them to recruit more fighters and sway corrupt Afghan forces. 

“It will further contribute to insecurities and increase terrorist activities in the country,” Qayem acknowledged. 

KABUL — Dozens of Afghan police and soldiers have been killed in a wave of Taliban attacks on checkpoints in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, as insurgents step up assaults on the beleaguered security forces. 

The raids in the southern province of Kandahar and the western province of Farah on Monday night came hours after a suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a US military convoy, wounding four soldiers.

The Taliban issued statements on their social media accounts claiming the attacks. 

“I can confirm that last night the Taliban launched a wave of attacks on police checkpoints in Maiwand and Zhari districts and we lost 22 brave policemen,” Kandahar governor spokesman Qudrat Khushbakht told AFP.

He added that 45 militants were killed during the fighting that lasted around six hours. 

In one of the attacks militants used an explosives-packed police pickup to ambush a checkpoint, Kandahar police spokesman Matiullah Helal told AFP.

At least 15 policemen were wounded in the coordinated assaults. 

The attack on the US military convoy in Kandahar added to the casualty toll.

“There were a total of four US service members injured and all are in stable condition in US medical treatment facilities,” a spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said, adding there were no fatalities.

Farah governor spokesman Naser Mehri told AFP nine Afghan National Army soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in the province bordering Iran that also claimed the lives of at least three civilians.

“There are signs the Taliban may have used night vision technology to approach and surprise our forces, though they were spotted before reaching the posts and suffered casualties,” Mehri said.

The Taliban have intensified attacks on security installations across the country in recent weeks in a show of strength as the United States deploys more troops to train and assist Afghan forces. 

Analysts said the Taliban’s almost daily attacks are intended to show their ability to strike even heavily defended targets with the aim of further demoralising Afghan forces already beset by huge casualties and desertions.

The Taliban often use bomb-laden armoured Humvees and police vehicles stolen from Afghan security forces to blast their way into security compounds. 

The tactic was used multiple times last month with devastating effect: hundreds were killed and wounded over a bloody few days that left military bases and police headquarters destroyed or severely damaged. 

Afghan security forces have faced soaring casualties in their attempts to hold back the insurgents since NATO combat forces pulled out of the country at the end of 2014.

Casualties leapt by 35 per cent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed, according to US watchdog SIGAR.

The insurgents have carried out more complex attacks against security forces in 2017, with SIGAR describing troop casualties in the early part of the year as “shockingly high”. 

In August, Trump announced that American forces would stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, increasing attacks on militants and deploying more troops.

BONN — The carbon dioxide emissions that drive global warming, flat since 2014, are set to rise 2 per cent this year, dashing hopes they had peaked, scientists reported at UN climate talks on Monday.

"This is very disappointing," said Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia and lead author of a major study detailing the findings. 

"With global CO2 emissions from human activities estimated at 41 billion tonnes for 2017, time is running out on our ability to keep warming below 2ºC, let alone 1.5ºC."

The 196-nation Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, calls for capping global warming at 2ºC below pre-industrial levels.

With the planet out of kilter after only one degree of warming — enough to amplify deadly heatwaves, droughts, and superstorms — the treaty also vows to explore the feasibility of holding the line at 1.5ºC.

Earth is overheating due to the burning of oil, gas and especially coal to power the global economy. Deforestation also plays a critical role.

"The news that emissions are rising after a three-year hiatus is a giant leap backward for humankind," said Amy Luers, a climate policy advisor to Barack Obama and executive director of Future Earth, which co-sponsored the research.

This year's climate summit is presided by Fiji, one of dozens of small island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising seas engorged by warmer water and melt-off from ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.

Thousands of diplomats in Bonn are negotiating the "rulebook" for the Paris pact, which goes into effect in 2020.

To stay below the 2ºC threshold, greenhouse gas emissions should peak and begin to curve downward by 2020, earlier research has shown.

Stalled CO2 emissions from 2014 through 2016 — due to better energy efficiency, a boom in renewables, and reduced coal use in China — raised expectations that the world had turned the corner.

Those hopes were premature. 

"As each year ticks by, the chances of avoiding 2ºC of warming continue to diminish," said co-author Glen Peters, research director at Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway.

"Given that 2ºC is extremely unlikely based on current progress, then 1.5ºC is a distant dream," he told AFP.

The study fingered China as the single largest cause of resurgent fossil fuel emissions in 2017, with the country's coal, oil and natural gas use up three, 5 and 12 per cent, respectively.

Earth outside 

the safe zone 

China alone accounts for nearly 30 per cent of global carbon pollution.

Emissions from India — the world's fourth largest emitter after the United States and the European Union — are projected to grow by two per cent, down from a 6.7-per cent increase the year before.

In 2017, CO2 emissions in the United States will drop by only 0.4 per cent, compared to 1.2 per cent annually over the previous decade.

For the first time in five years, US coal use is projected to rise. 

"Human-induced warming has accelerated over the past few years despite the slowdown in carbon dioxide emissions because of other drivers of climate change, notably methane," said Myles Allen, a professor at the University of Oxford, commenting on the findings.

The Paris Agreement rests on voluntary carbon-cutting pledges from virtually every country in the world.

But even if fulfilled, those promissory notes are not enough to keep Earth in the safe zone, and would still see global temperatures rise a devastating 3ºC by the end of the century.

"Global commitments made in Paris to reduce emissions are still not being matched by actions," said Peters.

The bottom line, say experts, is that the global economy is not shifting quickly enough from fossil fuels to low- or zero-carbon energy. 

Solar and wind energy have grown 14 per cent annually since 2012, but still only account for a tiny fraction — less than 4 per cent — of global energy consumption.

The transition from dirty to clean energy has been slowed by oil, gas and coal subsidies that topped $320 million dollars (270 million euros) in 2015, according to the International Energy Agency.

Oceans and forests combined absorbed over half of the CO2 emissions from human activity, with the rest staying in the atmosphere, the study showed. 

"We would expect that the carbon sinks will eventually weaken as temperatures continue to rise, but how much and how fast is an active area of research," said Peters.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, meanwhile, released a report on Monday showing that climate change now imperils one in four natural World Heritage sites, including coral reefs, glaciers, and wetlands — nearly double the number from just three years ago. 

BONN — Environment campaigners at the ongoing 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) in Bonn warned developed countries against treating the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as a bank when developing countries request financing for projects on adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

The Friends of the Earth International said that they rejected giving out loans to developing countries to implement projects for the adaptation on climate change.

“They [developed countries] are treating the GCF as if it was a bank, but it is not. It is a fund for transformation for developing countries and for adaptation… and adaptation cannot be funded by loans… all developing countries are entitled to finance,” Meena Raman of Friends of the Earth Malaysia said at a press conference held on the sidelines of the COP23.

The GCF is a new global fund created to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenges of climate change. 

It helps developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to environmental change while seeking to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development, taking into account the needs of nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, according to its website.

The fund was set up by the 194 countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, as part of the convention’s financial mechanism, according to its website, which indicated that when the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, the GCF was given an important role in serving the agreement and supporting the goal of keeping climate change below 2ºC.

Meanwhile, Mary Church of Friends of the Earth Scotland underlined the importance of using global conferences, such as COPs, for climate action in each country.

“We urge civil societies and environment campaigners to hold governments into account, to change treaties that restrict real transformation from happening on the ground,” Church noted.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday industrialised countries must increase their efforts to fight climate change and Germany should lead by example by showing that ambitious emission targets could be achieved without destroying jobs.

Merkel’s comments, made in her weekly podcast in the midst of 200-nation talks on limiting global warming in Bonn, mirror the fine line the centre-right leader has to tread in tricky coalition negotiations to form the next government.

Merkel’s conservatives, which bled support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the September 24 election, are trying to forge a coalition government with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens.

The unlikely partners cited progress on Friday after three weeks of exploratory talks about a three-way coalition and party leaders are due to thrash out remaining differences over climate protection and eurozone finances on Sunday.

In her podcast, Merkel said industrialised countries had a special responsibility to reduce their emission of climate-damaging greenhouse gases, warning that time was running out.

“The urgency, I think we all see this in light of the natural disasters, is great,” Merkel said. Climate change is leading to droughts and famine and this is causing mass migration from poorer to richer countries, she added.

Referring to the Paris climate agreement, Merkel said: “As things stand right now, the target to keep the rise in temperature below 2ºC — ideally at around 1.5ºC — will be missed.”

Due to strong economic growth and higher-than-expected immigration, Germany is at risk of missing its own goal to lower emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels if the next government does not implement further measures.

Both the solid output figures as well as the increased number of people coming to Germany have pushed up emissions.

“That’s why we are also wrestling in exploratory talks for a possible new coalition about this: How can we adopt even more measures in order to try and reach this 2020 goal,” Merkel said.

But the chancellor insisted that Germany’s “industrial core” should not be put at risk and any further climate measures should not force companies to relocate.

“If steel mills, aluminium factories, copper smelters, if they all leave our country and go somewhere where environmental regulations are not as strict, then we have won nothing for global climate,” Merkel said.

The government should therefore adopt a sound mix of regulatory policy, financial incentives and voluntary measures in order to avoid major disruptions and job losses, she said.

“We have to push ahead forcefully with electromobility and alternative drive systems,” Merkel said. She also suggested that the next government should give tax incentives for home owners to improve building insulation.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a strong Brexit supporter as aid minister on Thursday following a resignation that left her struggling to ward off open conflict in a Cabinet divided over leaving the EU.

May is grappling with crises on several fronts. Her team is struggling to make headway in exit talks with the European Union, several ministers are embroiled in a wider sexual harassment scandal and her ability to command a majority in parliament is facing its most serious test. 

Penny Mordaunt, 44, who has previously held junior ministerial roles, had a short meeting with May at Downing Street during which her appointment as the new international development secretary was confirmed.

Fellow Brexit supporter Priti Patel resigned from the position on Wednesday over undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials that breached diplomatic protocol.

Patel's resignation forced May into her second Cabinet reshuffle in a week after former defence minister Michael Fallon resigned in the sexual harassment scandal that has also led to investigations of two other ministers including May's deputy.

Mordaunt was elected in 2010 to represent the southern English coastal city of Portsmouth, where she also serves as a volunteer reservist for the Royal Navy. She has argued the EU is a failing institution and that leaving would help make Britain safer.

Until Thursday's appointment, Mordaunt held a junior ministerial post with responsibilies for disabled people, health and work within the Department of Work and Pensions.

The instability in May's top team adds to what is already a difficult political situation. 

An ill-judged snap election in June cost her party its majority in parliament and has sapped her authority at a time when she is trying to heal deep divisions within her own party and negotiate Britain's departure from the EU.

The European Parliament's Brexit negotiator doused hopes that those negotiations were nearing a breakthrough, saying "major issues" must still be resolved on safeguarding citizens' rights.

A fresh round of negotiations between Britain and the European Commission began on Thursday.

Progress in Brussels is vital to help May keep onside nervous businesses who say they urgently need to know what will happen when Britain leaves the bloc; otherwise they will be forced to start triggering contingency plans.

On Wednesday, EU envoys discussed delaying the launch of talks with London on a post-Brexit relationship to next year.

Deep divisions

Sixteen months after Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU in a referendum, opinions are still split over Brexit at every level from voter to minister. 

Although May and her Cabinet are united in their intention to take Britain out of the EU, her ministerial team is seen as a delicate balancing act between lawmakers who are still identified as “remainers” or “leavers” according to how they voted in the referendum.

In replacing Patel, an outspoken leaver, with another Brexiteer May looked to maintain that balance.

The promotion of a junior minister could also help placate younger members of the party, many of whom are angry at her mishandling of the snap election campaign and feel they should be given a chance to regenerate the party's support.

Failure to satisfy the party is seen as a risk to May's future as leader. She is reliant on uniting all her lawmakers to pass legislation, including the laws needed to enact Brexit which will be up for debate in parliament next week.

If she is unable to prove her ability to pass legislation and govern effectively, the Conservative Party — historically intolerant of weakened leaders — could seek to replace her, although there are currently no clear candidates to do so.

WARSAW — Poland plans to restrict Sunday shopping from next year, as the conservative government pushes ahead with what it sees as a return to Roman Catholic values.

The move runs against a trend of a slow liberalisation of Sunday shop hours throughout Europe, where retailers face pressure from a boom in online shopping.

Under the proposals that parliament is due to discuss this month, all but the smallest shops would be allowed to open for only two Sundays a month.

“This is the first step... and I hope we can move towards further restrictions,” said Janusz Sniadek, a ruling Law and Justice (PiS) Party lawmaker who is leading the legislation through parliament.

“The proposals should give families more time to spend together, to move away from spending it in shopping malls, something the church has been speaking about,” he told Reuters.

Since coming to power in 2015, the PiS has pursued policies that reflect patriotism infused with Catholic piety: ending state funding for in-vitro fertilisation, promoting awareness of natural family planning in schools, and restricting support for some organisations focusing on violence against women.

Poland’s Bishops’ Conference has welcomed the Sunday trading initiative, issuing a statement that said: “let’s not disregard God in public life and let’s not assume we have the right to organise national life as if God didn’t exist.”

Broad appeal 

While Sunday shopping remains limited in some of the biggest economies in western Europe, it has bloomed in the east since the end of the Cold War, as people welcomed greater retail choice as a sign of economic success following years of shortages under communism.

But public support for curbs has grown in Poland where people work longer hours than in almost any other EU state.

Nearly two out of three Poles questioned in a 2016 survey by pollster CBOS supported partial restrictions, including more than 80 per cent of the PiS electorate. 

The party swooped to power promising to make the economy fairer, appealing to the many voters who felt they were missing out on the benefits of post-communist reforms.

“I’d prefer a trading ban every Sunday,” said Katarzyna Bargielska, a 47-year-old cashier. 

“I work every Saturday and every other Sunday. Sometimes I have only two days off a month and I make 430 euros ($500). A free Sunday would mean more time with my family.”

Retail operators are less keen.

“It will be a disaster for us and the food sector,” said Malgorzata Grycan, an owner of one of Poland’s biggest ice cream brands, Grycan.

“Most of our cafes are located in shopping malls which will be closed on Sundays. We have a tradition in Poland to go out for ice cream or cake with the family on Sunday.”

A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers last year showed that sales could fall by about a billion euros a year if shops close every other Sunday. Economists say record low unemployment would cushion the impact on the labour market.

Hungary scrapped a ban on Sunday trade that had been in effect for little over a year in 2016 because it proved unpopular. In Greece, the International Monetary Fund has demanded shops open more as part of a bailout deal.

But in Poland, Economy Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he would not oppose a ban that covered every Sunday, telling RMF radio: “Germany and France function this way, so why not?” 

MADRID — Catalonia’s deposed leader Carles Puigdemont urged the region’s political forces on Tuesday to unite against Spain, as a window for him to seal an electoral pact with other pro-independence parties began to close.

Puigdemont went into self-imposed exile in Belgium last month after Spain’s central government fired his secessionist administration, dissolved the Catalan parliament and called an election in the region for December 21.

Pro-secession parties want that vote to become a de facto independence referendum. Two of those parties, Puigdemont’s PDeCAT and the ERC Party, said at the weekend they might contest it on a combined ticket.

But they must register any alliance by the end of Tuesday, and prospects of them bridging their differences in time looked slim.

The Catalan independence push has deeply divided Spain, dragging it into its worst political crisis since the return of democracy four decades ago and fuelling anti-Spanish sentiment in Catalonia and nationalist tendencies elsewhere.

In an interview with Catalunya Radio on Tuesday from Brussels, Puigdemont said all parties contesting the election should unite against Madrid.

“The ideal would be a broad regional list of parties... that stand for democracy and freedom.” he said, mentioning PDeCAT, ERC, the anti-capitalist CUP and left-wing Podemos.

ERC’s spokesman Sergi Sabria said on Monday his party did not rule out a coalition with PDeCAT, but would agree only if other parties joined them, including CUP, which has yet to decide whether it will contest the December ballot.

Legitimacy 

Polls show the ERC and PDeCAT combined would not win enough votes for a majority in the Catalan parliament, though running together would increase their chance of success.

Puigdemont also said he might be in jail by the time of the election, “but prison doesn’t deprive anyone of legitimacy”.

Madrid issued an arrest warrant against Puigdemont on charges including rebellion, but a Brussels court ruled on Monday the deposed leader could remain at liberty in Belgium until it decides whether he should be extradited.

He and other secessionist leaders face the charges for organising an independence referendum on October 1 and proclaiming a Catalan republic, in defiance of Spain’s constitution.

The party that forms the main opposition to the secessionists in Catalonia emerged as the big winner in the first nationwide voter survey published by Spain’s most closely watched polling group since the referendum.

Support for the pro-business Ciudadanos rose almost three percentage points to 17.5 percent, the Sociological Research Centre survey showed.

Podemos — which supports a negotiated referendum on independence in Catalonia — and its allies fell almost two points to 18.5 percent in the survey.

Unequivocal support for Puigdemont and the secessionist cause came from some 200 pro-independence Catalan mayors who were due to hold a rally in Brussels at 5 pm (1600 GMT) .

In Tuesday’s radio interview, Puigdemont also called on the Spanish government to suspend Article 155, which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy enacted last month to govern Catalonia from Madrid, ahead of the December vote.

“The Spanish state is committing a brutal repression ... If we don’t battle repression together, the Spanish state may win this fight,” Puigdemont said.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — The man accused of killing 26 people including an 18-month-old child at a Texas church had sent threatening text messages to his in-laws who sometimes attended the house of worship before launching the latest U.S. mass shooting, officials said on Monday.

"There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws," Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told reporters. "The mother-in-law attended the church. We know he sent threatening ... that she had received threatening text messages from him."

 The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child and sentenced to 12 months confinement. He received a "bad conduct" discharge in 2014, according to Ann Stefanek, the chief of Air Force media operations.

Kelley, 26, walked into the white-steepled First Baptist Church in rural Sutherland Springs on Sunday carrying a Ruger AR-556 assault rifle and wearing a black bulletproof vest, then opened fire during prayer service. He wounded at least 20 others, officials said.

After he left the church, two local residents, including one who was armed, chased Kelley in a truck and they exchanged gunfire. The chase ended when Kelley crashed his car, and may have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or from the good Samaritan's weapon, said Martin.

An autopsy will determine the cause of death, Martin said.

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said in an interview that the family members had not been present at the time of Kelley's attack.

"I heard that [the in-laws] attended church from time to time," Tackitt said. "Not on a regular basis."

 The attack, which killed people ranging from 18 months to 77 years old, came a little more than a month after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas in the deadliest shooting by a sole gunman in US history.

The initial death toll matched the fatalities at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a man shot and killed 26 children and educators and his mother before taking his own life in December 2012. Those attacks now stand as the fourth deadliest by a single gunman in the United States.

Officials warned that 10 of the wounded remained in critical condition on Monday morning.