World News Update, what you need to know

The hunt for three men who New Orleans police believe enticed two Australian university students away from the famed Bourbon Street strip with the promise of drugs is continuing.

PHILADELPHIA - Bill Clinton has faced down protesters at a presidential campaign rally in Philadelphia for his wife Hillary over criticisms that a 1994 crime bill he approved while president led to a surge in black people being imprisoned.

WASHINGTON - US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is getting a taste of the "New York values" he derided in Iowa as Republicans turn to the next big US presidential contest in the home state of frontrunner Donald Trump.

DUBLIN - Ireland's second-largest political party has rejected a coalition offer from acting Prime Minister Enda Kenny, less than 24 hours after he made the unprecedented proposal to try to break a prolonged post-election deadlock.

AMMAN - Syrian rebel forces have taken over most of a town near the Turkish border that had been a stronghold of Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel source says.

BEIRUT - Islamic State fighters have kidnapped 300 cement workers in an area northeast of Damascus where the militants launched an assault against government forces this week, Syrian state television says.

BANGKOK - North Korea operates a dozen medical clinics in the east African nation of Tanzania, making money for the isolated regime in Pyongyang but providing "questionable" care, a news investigation has revealed.