World/Nation
Democrats block vote to turn down Iran deal
WASHINGTON - For the second time, Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a vote to move forward on a resolution rejecting the Iran nuclear deal, protecting President Barack Obama's key foreign policy initiative.
The measure failed Tuesday to gain the 60 votes needed to advance - just as it did last Thursday. The vote was 56 to 42.
Though the measure is unlikely to advance, Republicans staged the Senate vote to make political points against Democrats and in future Senate races. They point to polls showing Americans have reservations about the deal.
The second vote was not the final word in the Senate. Frustrated with the outcome, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., set up a third vote Thursday on a measure that would bar Obama from lifting sanctions on Iran unless Tehran recognized Israel as a state and released U.S. prisoners held in Iran.
"Either way this debate will continue," the Republican leader said.
Hungary seals off Serbian border, detains migrants
HORGOS, Serbia - Hungary sealed off its border with Serbia with massive coils of barbed wire Tuesday and began detaining migrants trying to use the country as a gateway to Western Europe, harsh new measures that left thousands of frustrated asylum-seekers piled up on the Serbian side of the border.
Human rights activists condemned the move, with Amnesty International saying Hungary's "intimidating show of militarized force is shocking." But Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended the measures, saying he was acting to preserve Christian Europe, which he said had become threatened by the large numbers of Muslims streaming into the continent.
"The supply is nearly endless - we can see how many of them are coming," Orban said in a televised address just before the new laws took effect at midnight. "And if we look at the demographics, we can see that these people have more children than our communities who lead a traditional, Christian way of life."
"Mathematics tells you that this will lead to a Europe where our way of life will end up in a minority, or at least face a very serious challenge."
By nightfall Tuesday, thousands of migrants, including many babies and children, prepared to spend a night in the open or in flimsy tents erected in the bushes or on the main highway near the Serbian border with Hungary.
Refugee crowds: Could militants be among them?
PARIS - When Islamic State extremists lost control of a key crossroads town in northern Syria in June, some militants shed their jihadi garb and blended in with the flood of Syrians fleeing across the Turkish border. Since then, the exodus of Syrians and Iraqis toward Europe has surged - and Europeans opposed to taking in more refugees say that more than ever, they fear "disguised terrorists" in their midst.
Governments along the route have different assessments of the threat. Two senior Iraqi officials and a Syrian activist say a small group of hardened Islamic State extremists is believed to have left the war zones of Iraq and Syria to blend in with the masses of asylum seekers in recent weeks.
Intelligence officials in France and Germany expressed skepticism, saying they have no specific evidence. The Soufan Group, a security consulting firm, said Monday that some infiltration was probable but the extent of the danger was unknowable, making it "susceptible to exaggeration and exploitation."
The disarray of Europe's asylum procedures in the face of thousands of applications has heightened worries, although security experts say Europe is at far greater risk from homegrown Islamic State sympathizers with valid European travel documents and the means to plan an attack.
Leaders of countries opposed to taking in the refugees routinely cite the fear as one of their primary reasons. The concerns are fanned by lines of exhausted refugees, bedraggled families walking northward along railroad tracks, and trains carrying refugees between countries with minimal or no identity checks, straining a system already near the breaking point.
Two students die after school bus rolls off highway
HOUSTON - A school bus plunged off a highway overpass in Houston after being hit by a car driven by a teacher Tuesday, killing two students and seriously injuring three other people, police and school officials said.
A 17-year-old female student died at the scene, while a 14-year-old girl died at a hospital, according to the Houston Independent School District. The driver and the other passengers on the bus - a male student and a female student - are hospitalized. Their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, according to a police statement.
The names of the students haven't been released.
"We are deeply saddened by this tragedy," Superintendent Terry Grier said in a statement. "I ask all of the HISD community to join me in praying for all of those involved."
Police spokesman Victor Senties said investigators believe a car struck the front driver's side of the bus after swerving to avoid another vehicle during morning rush-hour traffic. The bus then lurched to the right, struck a guardrail and toppled to the road below, Senties said.
- The Associated Press