World/Nation

NSA impasse: Phone records collection to end

WASHINGTON - However Congress resolves its impasse over government surveillance, this much is clear: The National Security Agency will ultimately be out of the business of collecting and storing Americans' calling records.

Aiming for passage Tuesday afternoon, the Senate on Monday prepared to make modest changes to a House bill that would end the collection while preserving other surveillance authorities. But while Congress debated, the law authorizing the collection expired at midnight Sunday.

The NSA had stopped gathering the records from phone companies hours before the deadline. And other post-9/11 surveillance provisions considered more effective than the phone-call collection program also lapsed, leading intelligence officials to warn of critical gaps.

The legislation now before the Senate, known as the USA Freedom Act, would reauthorize the surveillance but would phase out NSA phone records collection over time. It passed the House overwhelmingly and is backed by President Barack Obama. Sen. Rand Paul, who doesn't believe it goes far enough in restricting the government, objected anew on Monday, but he can't stop a vote to end debate scheduled for today.

If the bill becomes law over the next few days, the NSA will resume gathering the phone records but only for a transition period of six months, in the House version, or a year in the Senate version.

IS revamps propaganda to lure Westerners

PARIS - The announcer with an American accent offers an upbeat roundup of the day's main headlines: Islamic State fighters seized control of a crucial Syrian city, extremists repelled Kurdish fighters despite coalition airstrikes, and two suicide bombers successfully carried out their missions.

The tone is National Public Radio in the United States. But this is Al-Bayan, the Islamic State radio targeting European recruits by touting recent triumphs in the campaign to carve out a Caliphate, and it represents a major headache for Western powers trying to curtail the IS influence.

All news is good news for Al-Bayan's "soldiers of the Caliphate." In this narrative, the enemy always flees in disgrace or is killed. The broadcasts end with a swell of music and a gentle English message: "We thank our listeners for tuning in."

The tension between the smooth, Western-style production and the extremist content shows how far the hardcore Islamic propaganda machine has come since 2012, when an aging Frenchman posed in front of a black-and-white jihadi flag and threatened France in the name of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

South Carolina's Graham opens White House bid

CENTRAL, S.C. - South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham opened his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Monday with a grim accounting of radical Islam "running wild" in a world imperiled also by Iran's nuclear ambitions.

He dedicated himself to defeating U.S. adversaries - a commitment that would place thousands of troops back in Iraq, essentially re-engaging in a war launched in 2003.

"I've got one simple message," Graham, 59, told supporters in the small town where he grew up. "I have more experience with our national security than any other candidate in this race. That includes you, Hillary."

In that fashion, he took on Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton - the former secretary of state - as well as non-interventionists in his own party and rivals with little to no foreign policy experience.

Boat with more than 450 aboard sinks in China

BEIJING - A small cruise ship carrying more than 450 people, many of them elderly, sank overnight in the Yangtze River during a storm in southern China, and eight people have been rescued.

Rescue work was underway but low visibility due to fog was hampering the search. The boat was traveling from Nanjing upstream to the southwestern city of Chongqing when it sank Monday night in Hubei province.

The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the captain and chief engineer, who were both rescued, as saying the ship sank quickly after being caught in a cyclone. The ship sank within two minutes.

- The Associated Press