World/Nation
• Republicans aim to win Senate control today
WASHINGTON - On a final, furious day of campaigning, Republicans strained to capture control of the Senate while Democrats struggled to limit their congressional losses in elections midway through an unpopular President Barack Obama's second term.
"The spending, the borrowing, the taxing, the overregulation, the slow growth. ... These people need to be stopped," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said of the Democrats on Monday, urging voters to support him and GOP candidates everywhere. He would be in line to control the Senate's agenda as majority leader if Republicans win today.
Democrats weighed down by Obama's unpopularity kept their distance from him and looked to a costly turn-out-the-vote operation in the most competitive Senate races to save their seats and their majority.
While this year's Senate races have featured astronomical spending, ceaseless attack ads and innumerable slaps at a president who's not on the ballot, ideas on how best to govern the nation are largely missing.
Even with control of the Senate at stake, serious discussions about deficit spending, climate change, immigration, Social Security's long-term future and other knotty issues rarely emerged.
Republicans overwhelmingly devoted their campaigns to criticizing President Barack Obama's leadership and governing style.
And Democrats, while sometimes forced to wanly defend "Obamacare," often caricatured their opponents as throwbacks eager to limit women's reproductive rights.
• Egypt, Gulf Arab allies may form military alliance
CAIRO - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East.
The alliance would also serve as a show of strength to counterbalance their traditional rival, Shiite-dominated, Iran. Two countries are seen as potential theaters for the alliance to act, senior Egyptian military officials said: Libya, where Islamic militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen, where Shiite rebels suspected of links to Iran have seized control of the capital.
The discussions reflect a new assertiveness among the Middle East's Sunni powerhouses, whose governments - after three years of post-Arab Spring turmoil in the region - have increasingly come to see Sunni Islamic militants and Islamist political movements as a threat.
The U.S. Arab allies' consideration of a joint force illustrates a desire to go beyond the international coalition that the United States has put together to wage an air campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have participated in those strikes in Syria. The officials said the alliance under consideration was not intended to intervene in Iraq or Syria but to act separately to address other extremist hot spots.
• 2 more Air Force nuclear missile commanders fired
WASHINGTON - The Air Force on Monday fired two more nuclear commanders and disciplined a third, fresh evidence of leadership lapses in a nuclear missile corps that has suffered a rash of recent setbacks, including the firing last year of its top commander.
The most senior officer to be relieved Monday was Col. Carl Jones, the No. 2 commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., in charge of 150 of the Air Force's 450 Minuteman 3 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. He was dismissed "for a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership abilities," and has been reassigned as a special assistant to the wing commander.
The actions Monday were confirmed to The Associated Press in response to an AP inquiry about an internal Air Force investigation of two commanders at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which also is responsible for 150 Minuteman 3 missiles.
• Ferguson no-fly zone aim was to keep media away
WASHINGTON - The White House said Monday a no-fly zone the U.S. government imposed over Ferguson, Mo., for nearly two weeks in August should not have restricted helicopters for news organizations that wanted to operate in the area to cover violent protests there.
Audio recordings obtained by The Associated Press showed the Federal Aviation Administration working with local authorities to define a 37-square-mile flight restriction so that only police helicopters and commercial flights could fly through the area, following demonstrations over the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest sidestepped questions about conversations on the tapes showing police working with the FAA to keep media away.
- The Associated Press