UNITED NATIONS (AP) – China’s president pledged billions in aid and said Beijing will forgive debts due this year in an effort to help the world’s poorest nations, as world leaders begin to seek the trillions of dollars needed to help achieve sweeping new development goals.
President Xi Jinping spoke at a global summit that launched the non-binding goals for the next 15 years.
WASHINGTON (AP) – A summer of stalemate in the effort to reclaim the Iraqi provincial capital of Ramadi, despite U.S.-backed Iraqi troops vastly outnumbering Islamic State fighters, calls into question not only Iraq’s ability to win a test of wills over key territory but also the future direction of Washington’s approach to defeating the extremist group.
The Ramadi standoff, with no immediate prospect of an Iraqi assault on the city, drags on even as the U.S. prepares to makeover its approach to countering the enemy in Syria and congressional Republicans cite Ramadi as evidence of a failed American strategy. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a leading critic, says it’s clear the U.S. is not winning, “and if you’re not winning in this kind of warfare, you are losing.”
WASHINGTON (AP) – The gulf between Tea Party conservatives and established Republicans has grown so wide that it just swallowed up the Speaker of the House and may threaten the entire Republican Party and Congress itself.
The question now is whether anyone can tame the House’s rabble-rousing faction, following Speaker John Boehner’s decision to resign rather than face a possible vote to depose him. The stakes are sky-high, given the critical deadlines looming to keep the government running and raise the nation’s borrowing limit.