U.S. Rights Report Slams IS Militants, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Among Others
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Mixed Feelings In Macedonia As A Russian Orthodox Church Rises by noreply@rferl.org (Elisabeth Braw)
A Russian Orthodox church under construction in Macedonia is one of several that have been built or planned in Europe in recent years. Beneath talk of spiritual ties, there is concern that Moscow could use such churches to advance its temporal interests.
U.S. Rights Report Slams IS Militants, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Among Others by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
In a new report, the U.S. State Department strongly criticizes Islamic State (IS) militants -- as well as the Russian, Iranian, and Azerbaijani governments -- for human rights abuses.
U.S. To Continue Rights Sanctions Against Iran, Regardless Of Nuclear Deal by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
The U.S. State Department says sanctions imposed against Iran in response to its violations of human rights will remain in place regardless of any nuclear deal brokered by Tehran and six world powers.
NATO says it will decide how quickly to scale back its military training and support mission in Afghanistan after assessing how well local security forces perform in this summear's "fighting season."
The deputy U.S. defense chief says he is worried by what he calls Russian provocations, saying Moscow is "playing with fire" by making veiled threats about its nuclear capabilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned U.S. President Barack Obama June 25, their first call since February, to discuss Iran nuclear talks, "the increasingly dangerous situation in Syria" and the need to counter the Islamic State, the White House said.
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A man drowned on June 25 when severe flooding hit the Russian resort of Sochi, destroying homes and cutting off transport links. Authorities declared a state of emergency in the Black Sea city, which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics, deploying rescue workers from other cities to help cope with the disaster, authorities said. The body of the drowning victim, who was in his forties, was found in Adler, on the outskirts of Sochi. A torrential downpour dumped the equivalent of two months of rain in just 14 hours on the city of 400,000. Around 400 homes were destroyed in the part of the city closest to the Black Sea. "The Kherota river overflowed its banks, the train station was flooded and train services had to be suspended," Sochi's mayor, Anatoly Pakhomov, said. Around 2,000 people were stranded at the airport, which was under 1 meter of water, the mayor added. Several of the venues for the Olympics were flooded, as was the Formula One circuit to host the Russian Grand Prix that was inaugurated in October last year.
The Kremlin says that Yevgeny Primakov, an economist who served as Russia's prime minister in 1998-99, has died aged 85.
At least one attacker carrying a flag bearing Islamist inscriptions killed one person and injured several others on June 26 at a factory near the city of Grenoble in eastern France.
Protesters Continue To Block Street In Yerevan Over Electricity Rate Hikes by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL's Armenian Service)
Thousands of Armenian protesters continued to block one of Yerevan’s main thoroughfares on June 26, a day after the government refused their demands to reverse a 16 percent electricity price hike.
Putin Breaks Silence With Call to Obamaby PETER BAKER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
The Russian president called to talk about the battle against ISIS, while the American president focused on the separatist war in Ukraine.
World Briefing: Armenia: Impasse Over a Price Increaseby THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The prime minister’s comments came as thousands of protesters continued their round-the-clock blockade of the main avenue of the capital.
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Islamic militants have carried out a terror attack at a popular tourist hotel in Sousse exchanging gunfire with security services on a beach packed with British holidaymakers.
The Queen has paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and laid a wreath during her historic visit to Bergen-Belsen in Germany's Lower Saxony region. An estimated 80,000 people died there.
When in comes to high-calibre non-fiction, risk-averse trade publishing houses are producing too many copycat ‘smart thinking’ books that promise more than they deliver. But praise should be given to the university presses
Amid the ambient wails of doom about the publishing industry, I’d like to enter a note of encouragement. The mainstream may be getting dumber by the day, but we are living in what looks like a golden age of publishing for, of all people, the university presses.
At the moment, I don’t think there’s a trade publishing house producing high-calibre, serious non-fiction of the quality and variety of Yale University Press; and snapping at its heels are Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Cambridge and Chicago. As the literary editor of a middlebrow news magazine I’m finding ever more of the reviews I commission are from such presses.
Continue reading...'We are hugging and crying': Americans on Obamacare breathe a sigh of relief by Jana Kasperkevic in New York
For 9 million people, Thursday’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act was a potentially life-saving decision: ‘We are celebrating. I am just so relieved’
Nine million people in 34 states woke up on Friday morning knowing that the health insurance plans many have come to rely on were safe.
In a landmark ruling in support of Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law, the supreme court ruled that subsidies issued to people in states that did not set up their own healthcare exchanges were legal.
Continue reading...
Supreme Court decision will affect the well-being of same-sex couples, according to social scientists
Justices engage in war of words as Affordable Care Act supporters celebrate Supreme Court decision to uphold a key provision of the law
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Bad weather delayed recovery of bodies from cliff 800 feet up; passengers were on excursion from cruise liner
French President Francois Hollande holds a press conference regarding the terrorist attack on a gas factory.
One person in custody after attack
A sightseeing float plane carrying a pilot and eight cruise ship passengers crashed into a cliff in southeast Alaska, killing everyone on board.
Courtney Love: 'I was held hostage' | Video captures the violent scene | Cabbies clash with riot police
Queen Elizabeth II visits Berlin's Brandenburg Gate during her state visit to Germany.
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One man decapitated and several hurt in suspected Islamist attack on factory near Lyon, French sources say.
A tourist hotel has been attacked in the Tunisian resort of Sousse - reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court sent a clear message Thursday that President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is here to stay, rejecting a major challenge that would have imperiled the landmark law and health insurance for millions of Americans....
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti's prime minister warned Thursday that the Dominican Republic is creating a humanitarian crisis with its crackdown on migrants, noting that 14,000 people have crossed the border into Haiti in less than a week....
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- All nine people aboard a sightseeing plane died in a crash Thursday in southeast Alaska, authorities said, but stormy weather prevented the immediate recovery of the bodies....
Thousands expected for Obama's tribute to Charleston victimsby By MEG KINNARD and JONATHAN DREW
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- The first black president of the United States is coming to Charleston to eulogize the victims of a mass shooting at a historic African-American church - a tragedy that one civil rights activist said was a sign of "how far yet" the nation has to go to put racial tensions behind it....
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THE LATEST: French open terror probe after factory attackby By The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) -- The latest on the attack in southeastern France (all times local):...
African migrants find shelter in EU heart after hard journeyby By DALTON BENNETT and SHAWN POGATCHNIK
BRIETLINGEN, Germany (AP) -- Hilarion Charlemagne presents his tattered sneakers as a badge of honor. Worn bare and fraying, they tell the tale of his journey across two continents that often felt like it might never end....
French factory assault latest in string of terror attacks in Western Europe in recent years
Following violent protests against online taxi-booking service Uber, the French government has ordered a ban on UberPop, its ride-sharing app.
French President François Hollande, attending a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels,condemned the “unacceptable violence” of Thursday’s protests. Thousands of taxi drivers around the country caused chaos by blocking access to major airports and train stations and even setting fire to vehicles.
At the same time, Hollande told reporters he understood taxi drivers’ “exasperation” with UberPop, which allows ordinary drivers to offer low-cost rides without the legally-required training or insurance. It could also make it easier for those drivers to evade declaring their income for the service.
“UberPop should be dissolved and declared illegal, and the seizure of vehicles must be enforced,” Hollande told reporters. “The sooner these rulings are made, the simpler the situation will be, especially for taxis.”
The French government ruled UberPop illegal last year but the law has been difficult to enforce; Uber is currently appealing to the Constitutional Court to overturn it. The Court’s ruling is expected in October.
Germany has already been banned in Germany on similar concerns.
Islamic State group claims responsibility for deadly bombing at Shiite mosque in Kuwait
General Karenzi Karake, director-general of Rwanda's national intelligence agency, is accused of ordering massacres in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
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US President Barack Obama has met Sir David Attenborough at the White House to ask for advice on climate change and conservation during an extraordinary interview on the future of the planet.
1 person reportedly decapitated, suspect in custody after car drives into gas factory near Lyon in attack bearing signs of Islamic extremism
In the news
US government hacking number sparks unusual drama at Senate briefing
A brief dispute flared between senior officials from OPM and the FBI, laying bare a ...
CNN - 1 day ago
Newsweek - 1 day ago
Wall Street Journal - 1 day ago
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration for more than a week avoided disclosing the severity ofan intrusion into federal computers by defining it as two breaches but divulging just one, said people familiar with the matter.
That approach has frustrated lawmakers as they probe the administration’s handling of one of the biggest-ever thefts of government records.
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspect China was behind the hack of Office of Personnel Management databases discovered in April, and that those hackers accessed not only personnel files but security-clearance forms, current and former U.S. officials said. Such forms contain information that foreign intelligence agencies could use to target espionage operations. Chinese officials have said they weren’t involved.
The administration on June 4 disclosed the breach of personnel files—but not the security-clearance theft. That theft was disclosed a week later, even though investigators knew about it much earlier, people familiar with the situation said.
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Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s home for politics, policy and national security news.
OPM Director Katherine Archuleta on Wednesday said her agency is investigating whether up to 18 million unique Social Security numbers were stolen as part of the attack on security-clearance records, though she cautioned that the number was unverified and preliminary.
Her statement came during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Many lawmakers have accused OPM of not providing enough information about what was stolen.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), who heads the oversight panel, reiterated on Wednesday his call for Ms. Archuleta to resign, something she said she had no plans to do.
An OPM spokeswoman said the agency had been “completely consistent’’ in its accounting of the data breach.
“As the investigation into the personnel records intrusion continued, it was discovered that OPM systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may also have been compromised,” the spokeswoman said. “We notified Congress of this intrusion as well.’’
As an investigation points to burgeoning effects of the OPM hack, with millions of personnel records, background checks and Social Security numbers possibly stolen, questions over the administration’s handling of the intrusion are growing.
Melanie Dougherty Thomas, who advises companies dealing with computer breaches, said deciding how much to say about a breach—and when—is critical.
“The general public understands there are breaches all the time. If you wait too long, you give the perception you’re trying to hide the facts, and that to people is unforgivable,” she said.
Before the OPM formally announced June 4 that it had been hacked, officials at the agency denied to The Wall Street Journal that security-clearance forms were taken, as people familiar with the attack had described.
A day after the public announcement, an OPM spokesman said there was “no evidence to suggest that information other than what is normally found in a personnel file has been exposed.’’ By that time, the FBI already knew—and told OPM—that security-clearance forms had been tapped, officials said.
On June 5, the same day as the OPM denial, Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system, sent a letter to university officials saying anyone with a security clearance—including people who have never worked for the government—could be affected by the hack. Ms. Napolitano, a former head of the Department of Homeland Security, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Officials familiar with the behind-the-scene discussions said officials at the White House and OPM agreed to handle the problem as at least two separate breaches—one of the personnel files, and one of the security clearance forms.
That had major implications for the initial description of damage. Rather than saying the hack potentially involved the private details of an estimated 18 million people—and possibly millions more if relatives and close friends listed on the security clearance forms are counted—the agency said about four million people were potentially affected.
The FBI, which is investigating the OPM hack, didn’t define it the same way. When responding to computer attacks on companies or government agencies, the FBI leaves it to the victimized agency to tell the public and its employees what was taken. But in the case of the OPM, FBI officials, including the director, James Comey, also had to speak to lawmakers about the incident, and Mr. Comey didn’t discuss the incident as two breaches—said people familiar with the matter.
Some administration officials defended the White House and OPM description of the breach, saying officials were following an internal decision-making process, which culminated in a June 8 finding by the National Security Council that officials had high confidence the security- clearance forms had been accessed.
Four days later, the administration announced these forms had, in fact, been tapped by the hackers.
Ms. Archuleta said in her testimony Wednesday she believes 4.2 million personnel records of current and former government employees were stolen, but said estimates were less precise about the hack of background- check investigations, which took place over a number of years.
“It is my understanding that the 18 million [number] refers to a preliminary, unverified and approximate number of unique Social Security numbers in the background investigations data,” she said. “It is a number I am not comfortable with.”
The dispute over the extent of the breach flared the day before in a private briefing with lawmakers, said people familiar with the discussion. When Ms. Archuleta said she didn’t know where the figure of 18 million Social Security numbers came from, a senior FBI official interjected and said it was based on her agency’s own data, these people said.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the closed-door briefing, as did an OPM spokeswoman.
Ms. Archuleta told Congress OPM and other agencies are looking through the files to try to tabulate a more precise number of records that were stolen. She said the numbers could be less than 18 million, as some of the Social Security numbers could have been duplicates from other forms. But, she warned, the number of people whose personal information was stolen could also grow.
“It may well increase from these initial reports,” she said.
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Valerie Jarrett’s father, maternal grandfather and father-in-law were dedicated communists under prolonged investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to FBI files obtained by Judicial Watch.
Jarrett is a trusted senior adviser to President Barack Obama.
Jarrett’s father was James Bowman, a medical doctor who specialized in pathology, genetics and hematology. He also served as a professor at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He died in 2011.
An extensive FBI dossier obtained by Judicial Watch shows that Bowman belonged to the Association of Internes and Medical Students, an organization which “has long been a faithful follower of the Communist Party line,” then-contemporary FBI files indicate.
The FBI also found that Jarrett’s father communicated with Alfred Stern, a scion of wealth and suspected spy for the Soviet Union who was indicted absentia on espionage charges in 1957. According to the charges, he and his wife Martha Dodd Stern, the daughter of a U.S. ambassador to Germany, transmitted military, commercial and industrial information to the Soviet Union.
In response to the federal investigation, the Sterns fled to Mexico in 1953, then communist Czechoslovakia, then communist Cuba, then, finally, back to communist Czechoslovakia. In Prague, Stern worked for the communist government’s housing ministry. He died in 1986.
Jarrett’s father also spent time in Iran working after his discharge from the Army Medical Corps in 1955, FBI records reveal. (At the time, Iran was led by a government supported by the United States and Great Britain.)
Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1956.
Jarrett’s father and her maternal grandfather, Robert Rochon Taylor, also maintained a business partnership with Stern, FBI records reveal.
Jarrett’s father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, was among the individuals named on the FBI’s Security Index, a database used by the FBI to track people potentially dangerous to national security, reports Judicial Watch.
Vernon Jarrett was a long-time Chicago journalist. He worked at the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. He was also a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists. He came to the attention of the FBI because he had written propaganda for an unidentified Communist Party front group in Chicago which, FBI files indicate, distributed communist propaganda to “the middle class.”
The FBI further concluded that Vernon Jarrett could have been a Soviet saboteur and, in the event of a military conflict with the Soviet Union, the FBI would arrest him in a sweep of potential saboteurs. Vernon Jarrett died in 2004.
Valerie Jarrett was married to Vernon Jarrett’s son, William Robert Jarrett, for just five years. The couple happily married in 1983 and unhappily divorced in 1988.
Valerie Jarrett, who currently enjoys full-time Secret Service protection, served as a co-chair of Obama’s presidential transition team in 2009. She is one of three senior advisers to Obama and has long been a trusted svengali of the president as well as first lady Michelle Obama.
Jarrett’s official title is senior advisor to the president. She works in the White House and manages the White House Office of Public Engagement, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Office of Urban Affairs.
She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
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A heat wave in southern Pakistan has caused so much death in the country that morgues are overflowing, local medical workers say.
"They are piling bodies one on top of the other," Seemin Jamali, an official at a government hospital in Karachi, said of the city's overflowing morgues in an interview with Al Jazeera. Anwar Kazmi, an official with the Pakistani charity Edhi Welfare Organisation, told Agence France-Presse that the morgues had "reached capacity."
Pakistan's heat wave has been described as the worst in decades, with temperatures soaring to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The high temperatures hit during the Islamic month of Ramadan, when many Muslims were fasting during daylight hours. As of Thursday, reports in the Pakistani media put the death toll at 1,200, though temperatures have begun to fall.
Things got so bad that some morgues have put up signs outside, explaining that they are full.
Photographs taken from inside one morgue show how crowded it has become.
Volunteers try to identify a body among others of those who have died due to an intense heat wave at the Edhi Foundation morgue in Karachi on June 22. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)
A man waits, right, while volunteers search for the body of his deceased relative among the bodies of heat wave victims at Edhi Foundation morgue in Karachi on June 22. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)
The scale of crowding at the morgues had some major ill effects, Kazmi told Reuters. "The refrigeration unit was not working properly because there were too many bodies," the official explained.
On Tuesday, the Express Tribune reported that authorities were now attempting to bury unidentified bodies within a day to help deal with the backlog, but gravediggers were taking advantage of the situation and charging double their normal rates.
As horrific as Pakistan's situation is, it's not the first major heat wave of the year to result in deaths in South Asia. A heat wave in India in late May was blamed for the deaths of 2,500, making it one of the deadliest heat waves in history (Pakistan's heat wave would also find a place on that list).
And while infrastructure problems definitely play a role in the death toll (power cuts coincided with the heat wave in Pakistan), an even more difficult factor also plays a major role. As The Post's Wonkblog noted this year, climate change may not always create these extreme weather events, but it certainly makes them worse.
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Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.
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World | Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:04pm EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the Civic Chamber at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 23, 2015.
Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev walk to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Moscow, Russia, June 22, 2015.
Reuters/Ekaterina Shtukina/RIA Novosti/Pool
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the Civic Chamber at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 23, 2015.
Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev walk to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Moscow, Russia, June 22, 2015.
Reuters/Ekaterina Shtukina/RIA Novosti/Pool
WASHINGTON Russia is "playing with fire" with its nuclear saber-rattling and the United States is determined to prevent it from gaining a significant military advantage through violations of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the deputy U.S. defense chief said on Thursday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, speaking to lawmakers in the House of Representatives, also said modernizing and maintaining U.S. nuclear forces in the coming years would consume up to 7 percent of the defense budget, up from the current 3 to 4 percent, and could squeeze other programs unless additional funding was approved.
Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, Work said Moscow's effort to use its nuclear forces to intimidate its neighbors had failed, actually bringing NATO allies closer. He also criticized what he called Russia's "escalate to de-escalate" strategy.
"Anyone who thinks they can control escalation through the use of nuclear weapons is literally playing with fire," Work said. "Escalation is escalation, and nuclear use would be the ultimate escalation."
The deputy defense chief said Russia continued to violate the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, which bans ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (315 to 3,450 miles).
Work said the Pentagon was developing options for President Barack Obama to consider to respond to the treaty violations and would not let Russia "gain significant military advantage through INF violations."
The United States is about to embark on a costly long-term effort to modernize its aging nuclear force, including weapons, submarines, bombers and ballistic missiles. Estimates of the cost have ranged from $355 billion over a decade to about $1 trillion over 30 years.
The modernization comes as the Pentagon struggles with tight budgets and the need for other expensive weapons like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and new warships.
Work said the nuclear force modernization was expected to cost an average $18 billion per year from 2021 to 2035 in constant 2016 dollars.
The Pentagon's annual base budget has been about $500 billion for several years.
"Without additional funding dedicated to strategic forces modernization, sustaining this level of spending will require very, very hard choices and will impact the other parts of the defense portfolio," Work said.
Arms control groups say the U.S. nuclear force is larger than needed to accomplish the president's strategic aims, and the Pentagon could save money by prudently trimming the size of the nuclear triad and other steps.
(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Paul Simao)
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Eurozone finance ministers concluded a meeting on Greece to give Athens and the institutions overseeing its bailout more time to agree on conditions, officials said.
The face of America is changing.
The baby boomers, once the country's largest generation, can no longer hold claim to the title. The so-called millennial generation, or those Americans born between 1982 and 2000, is now the country's biggest segment of the population, with 83.1 million members, compared with 75.4 million for the boomers, according to a new U.S. Census report.
It's not only the numbers that are shifting, but also the country's diversity. Millennials, who represent more than one-quarter of the U.S. population, are more racially diverse than the nation's older generations, Census data shows. About 44 percent are part of a minority race or ethnic group, compared with only about 22 percent for Americans over the age of 65.
Still, there's another generation that's giving the millennials a run on the claim of being America's most diverse group. The country's youngest citizens, those younger than 5 years old, are the first group in U.S. history to represent a "majority-minority," which means more of them are minorities than whites. About 50.2 percent of Americans younger than 5 are minorities, the Census said.
That's having a long-term impact on America's racial and generational composition. A decade ago, minorities represented about 33 percent of the country. That's shifted to almost 38 percent in 2014.
Several trends are driving the changes, such as immigration from China and Mexico, along with an increase in multiracial families.
The share of multiracial babies has surged, rising from 1 percent in 1970 to 10 percent in 2013, according to a Pew Research Center study published earlier this month. Taboos against interracial marriage and relationships have faded, and demographers believe there will be more multiracial children born in future decades.
These social shifts are also having other effects. That includes how businesses market their products, with many companies eager to attract millennials, given the group's size. Whole Foods (WFM), just to cite one example, is opening a new chain that will target millennials. While details regarding the concept weren't available, millennials are a frugal group, often looking for bargains and good values.
That might be due to their values, but it could also reflect the fact that the millennial generation is coming of age during the slow economic recovery that has followed the Great Recession, an era of weak wage growth and, for many, diminished opportunity as inequality increases. Many are also struggling under the burden of student loans, with the class of 2015 graduating as the most indebted ever.
Indeed, while millennials are now the biggest generation in America, they are far from the richest. As a group they are heavily in debt, with half of them reporting that paying down their loans consumes more than half their monthly income, according to a 2014 study by Wells Fargo (WFC). Many are delaying buying a home and starting a family, given their debt issues and the uneven recovery.
A diverse future
The historic shift in America's racial composition is most visible in certain parts of the country. There are five U.S. states where the population has already shifted to a majority-minority, according to the latest Census data.
Hawaii has the most diverse population, with 77 percent of its residents counting as members of a minority race or ethnic group. Next is Washington, D.C., at 64.2 percent, followed by California at 61.5 percent. New Mexico is the fourth-most diverse state, at 61.1 percent, with Texas ranking fifth at 56.5 percent.
Several other states are on the threshold of switching from being predominantly white to a majority-minority. They include Nevada, with 48.5 percent of its population considered minorities.
What does America's minority population look like? Hispanics are the largest group, with 55.4 million as of July 2014, or an increase of 2.1 percent from the previous year.
The black population counts 45.7 million Americans, an increase of 1.3 percent since July 2013. Asians are the third-largest group, at 20.3 million, an increase of 3.2 percent from the previous year. American Indians totaled 6.5 million in mid-2014, an increase of 1.4 percent since the previous year.
As for non-Hispanic whites, there are 197.9 million in the country, an increase of 0.5 percent from the previous year.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
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After a Supreme Court victory, the president says the law is working -- and the time has come for GOP opponents to admit it
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders faced a daunting list of crises as they began their summit on Thursday, notably migrants crowding in at their southern borders, Russia growling in the east, Britain's threat to quit and a desperate need to create jobs.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek lawmakers passed a bitterly-contested law on citizenship for the children of migrants on Thursday, in a vote that split the ruling coalition but pointed toward possible alternative alliances for the ruling Syriza party.
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