World/Nation
Obama to seek arms, training for Syrian opposition
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will ask Congress to quickly authorize the arming and training of Syrian opposition forces but will press forward without formal sign-off from lawmakers on a broader military and political effort to combat militants in Syria and Iraq, administration officials said Tuesday.
Obama was to outline his plans Wednesday in a rare prime-time address to the nation, a format that underscores the seriousness of the threat posed by the Islamic State militants. The president's broader strategy could include more wide-ranging airstrikes against targets in Iraq and possibly in Syria, and hinges on military and political commitments from allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Ahead of his address, the president huddled with congressional leaders at the White House. Following the hourlong discussion, the White House said Obama told lawmakers that he "has the authority he needs to take action" against the Islamic State militants but would still welcome action from Congress that would "aid the overall effort and demonstrate to the world that the United States is united in defeating the threat."
Even before Obama's meeting with Senate and House leaders Tuesday, some lawmakers suggested a congressional vote on the president's plans was unlikely before the midterm elections in November.
"As a practical matter, I don't really see the time that it would take to really get this out and have a full debate and discuss all the issues," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Gay marriage heading for Supreme Court?
WASHINGTON - Both sides in the gay marriage debate agree on one thing: It's time for the Supreme Court to settle the matter.
Even a justice recently said she thinks so, too.
The emerging consensus makes it likely that the justices soon will agree to take up the question of whether the Constitution forbids states from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. A final ruling isn't likely before June 2015, but a decision to get involved could come as soon as the end of this month.
"I don't see a lot of reasons for them to wait," says Dale Carpenter, a gay rights expert at the University of Minnesota law school. "You have almost no one at this point opposed to certiorari," the legal term for high court review.
Officials in five states in which marriage bans were struck down by federal courts have rushed their appeals to the Supreme Court, in time for consideration by the justices when they meet in private on Sept. 29. Moving at breakneck speed, at least for the legal system, Indiana and Wisconsin filed appeals on Tuesday, just five days after the federal appeals court in Chicago struck down their state bans. The Chicago decision itself came just nine days after judges heard arguments, extremely fast for a process that usually is measured in months. Officials in Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia also have appealed to the Supreme Court.
Ferguson reforms met with rancor, doubt at meeting
FERGUSON, Mo. - Efforts by city leaders in the St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black 18-year-old was fatally shot by a white police officer to repair the local government's fractured relationship with its residents got off to a rocky start Tuesday at the first public meeting of elected officials since Michael Brown's death.
The shooting last month exposed an undercurrent of racial unrest in Ferguson and other nearby suburbs in mostly black communities of north St. Louis County and prompted days of sometimes violent protests.
The Ferguson City Council announced a set of proposals this week that include reducing the revenue from court fines used for general city operations and reforming court procedures. Critics say reliance on court revenue and traffic fines to fund city services more heavily penalizes low-income defendants who can't afford private attorneys and who are often jailed for not promptly paying those fines.
The city also plans to establish a citizens' review board to help guide the police department.
Flight 17 wreck still lies in Ukraine fields
HRABOVE, Ukraine - A child's jump rope, its yellow handles blistered and charred. A burned book in Tagalog. Chunks of twisted fuselage. More than seven weeks after being shot from the sky, the wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 still lay strewn Tuesday across the fields of eastern Ukraine.
As evidence of the July 17 aviation disaster that killed all 298 people on board remained exposed to the elements, investigators hundreds of miles away in the Netherlands - who have not yet visited the crash site because it is deemed too dangerous - released a preliminary report that left key questions unanswered.
The plane had no mechanical or other technical problem in the seconds before it broke up in the sky after being struck by multiple "high-energy objects from outside the aircraft," the report said.
- The Associated Press