World/Nation
• GOP opposes curb of NSA's use of phone records
WASHINGTON - The Senate on Tuesday blocked a bill to end bulk collection of American phone records by the National Security Agency, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama's primary proposal to rein in domestic surveillance.
The 58-42 vote was two short of the 60 needed to proceed with debate. Voting was largely along party lines, with most Democrats supporting the bill and most Republicans voting against it. The Republican-controlled House had previously passed its own NSA bill.
The legislation would have ended the NSA's collection of domestic calling records, instead requiring the agency to obtain a court order each time it wanted to analyze the records in terrorism cases, and query records held by the telephone companies. In many cases the companies store the records for 18 months.
The revelation that the spying agency had been collecting and storing domestic phone records since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was among the most significant by Edward Snowden, a former agency network administrator who turned over secret NSA documents to journalists. The agency collects only so-called metadata - numbers called, not names - and not the content of conversations. But the specter of the intelligence agency holding domestic calling records was deeply disquieting to many Americans.
The bill had drawn support from technology companies and civil liberties activists. Its failure means there has been little in the way of policy changes as a result of Snowden's disclosures.
• Israel vows harsh response after killings
JERUSALEM - Israel vowed harsh retaliation Tuesday for a Palestinian attack that killed five people and left blood-smeared prayer books and shawls on the floor of a synagogue in Jerusalem - an assault that sharply escalated already-high tensions after weeks of religious violence.
The attack during morning prayers in the west Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof was carried out by two Palestinian cousins wielding meat cleavers, knives and a handgun. They were shot to death by police after the deadliest assault in the holy city since 2008.
Four of the dead were rabbis and one was a police officer who died of his wounds hours after the attack. Three of the rabbis were born in the United States and the fourth was born in England, although all held dual Israeli citizenship. Five others were wounded.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, the first time he has done so in the wave of deadly violence against Israelis. But he also called for an end to Israeli "provocations" surrounding Jerusalem's shrines that are sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
• Fracking to be permitted in national forest
NORFOLK, Va. - Environmentalists and energy boosters alike welcomed a federal compromise announced Tuesday that will allow fracking in the largest national forest in the eastern United States, but make most of its woods off-limits to drilling.
The decision was highly anticipated because about half of the George Washington National Forest sits atop the Marcellus shale formation, a vast underground deposit of natural gas that runs from upstate New York to West Virginia and yields more than $10 billion in gas a year.
The federal management plan reverses an outright ban on hydraulic fracturing that the U.S. Forest Service had proposed in 2011 for the 1.1 million-acre forest, which includes the headwaters of the James and Potomac rivers. Those rivers feed the Chesapeake Bay, which is the focus of a multibillion-dollar, multistate restoration directed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A total ban would have been a first for America's national forests, which unlike national parks are commonly leased for mining, timber and drilling. But some environmentalists were pleased that at least some balance was struck between energy development and conservation.
"We think the decision shows the Forest Service listened to the local community," said Sarah Francisco, leader of the Southern Environmental Law Center's national forests and parks program. "The vast majority of the forest is protected in this decision."
• Hospitals work to improvise Ebola treatment plans
NEW YORK - What does it take to Ebola-proof a hospital?
Over the past few months, U.S. medical centers have spent millions of dollars putting together a plan to treat patients with the scary, but extremely rare disease.
To a large extent, it has been an exercise in improvisation.
In Newark, N.J., a hospital dealing with a space-crunch and staff anxiety moved its Ebola operation out of its main building and into a mobile medical shelter ordinarily used during natural disasters. In Dallas, Texas, three hospital systems pooled resources to create a treatment center in a defunct intensive care unit sitting empty since the spring. In Kansas, a hospital hastily built walls and hung plastic sheeting to create an isolation suite. A New York City hospital put together one unit, decided it wasn't optimal, and is finishing work on a replacement.
Federal officials have said they're trying to identify up to 20 hospitals around the country as Ebola referral centers.
- The Associated Press