Here's what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
Clinton's campaign opens with 'conversations' with Iowans, small-dollar fundraising
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — The big rallies and massive fundraising blitzes can wait for now. Fresh from a two-day road trip, Hillary Rodham Clinton is making her 2016 campaign debut in Iowa at a small-town gathering reminiscent of her Senate "listening tour."
Clinton was touring a community college and holding a roundtable discussion with students and teachers in Monticello, Iowa, on Tuesday, part of a concerted effort by her campaign to tamp down big expectations and hold personal "conversations" with voters.
"I won't take anything for granted. I'm going to work my heart out to earn every single vote," Clinton said in a fundraising email to supporters Monday.
Clinton is taking that same low-key approach to fundraising, forgoing the celebrity-studded fundraisers that marked her husband's presidency, as well as the high-dollar private events put on this year by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential GOP rival. Instead, Clinton's initial appeals for money will be for small-dollar donations collected over the Internet instead of in swanky fundraising blowouts in New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
Advisers have set a modest goal of raising $100 million for the primary campaign and will not initially accept donations for the general election.
In challenge to Obama, Senate committee to vote on bill to give Congress role on Iran deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a direct challenge to the White House, a Senate committee is to vote on a bill that would give Congress a chance to weigh in on any final nuclear agreement that can be reached with Iran.
Despite a veto threat from President Barack Obama, there is strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for Congress to have a say in any deal that the U.S. and five other nations are able to negotiate to keep Iran from being able to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for easing sanctions crippling the economy of the influential nation in the Middle East.
The White House doesn't want Congress to take any action that could upset the delicate negotiations that are supposed to wrap up with a final agreement by the end of June.
Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a vote is likely on Tuesday, possibly on a new version still being crafted Monday night.
"There have been some tweaks," said Corker, R-Tenn. "I'm hopeful that we're going to be successful tomorrow."
American veterans return to Mideast to fight IS group in unfinished war
BAGHDAD (AP) — A decade after his first Iraq tour, former U.S. Marine Jamie Lane has returned to the battlefields of the Middle East to fight a still unvanquished enemy and wrestle with the demons of his past.
The 29-year old from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan served as a machine gunner from 2004 to 2008, mainly in the western Anbar province, where he saw fierce fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq. Now, as a private citizen suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he is back in the region to battle its successor, the Islamic State group.
"In order to aid my recovery from PTSD, I have taken it upon myself to fight on my terms, against an enemy I know is evil," said Lane, who joined Kurdish militiamen in Syria. "It is redemption, in a sense."
He is one of a small but growing number of Iraq war veterans who are making their way back to the Middle East, not as uniformed soldiers, but as individuals waging their own personal battles.
Many describe feeling a sense of unfinished business as they watched the Islamic State group rampage across the country last summer, seizing territory they had fought and bled for during the U.S.-led intervention. Some express remorse for taking part in that war, while others say they are driven by the same sense of moral obligation that brought them here in the first place, joining their fate to that of a deeply troubled country.
Nigeria's president elect: I cannot promise to find abducted Chibok girls, whereabouts unknown
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — President-elect Muhammadu Buhari says he cannot promise to find the 219 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists one year ago from a school in northeastern Nigeria. But he promised his administration will do everything in its power to do so.
"We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them," Buhari said in a statement Tuesday marking the anniversary of the April 14-15 mass abduction that brought international outrage.
The failure to rescue the girls also elicited condemnation of Jonathan's government and the Nigerian military, which has repeatedly made false statements about the girls and continues to make hollow promises to bring them home.
Those failures contributed to Jonathan's thrashing at the polls March 28 by Buhari, a former military dictator who says he is a convert to democracy and promised a new approach Tuesday.
"We hear the anguish of our citizens and intend to respond accordingly," Buhari's statement said. "This new approach must also begin with honesty."
Despite occasional problems, use of volunteer police reserve officers remains common across US
By the thousands, volunteers across the United States sign up to assist their local law enforcement agencies as reserve police officers and sheriff's deputies. Most perform routine duties in unpaid anonymity. A few become known as heroes or rogues.
Among that vast contingent of reservists was Robert Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, who was charged Monday with manslaughter in the death of a man shot as he lay on the ground in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A police investigator said Bates, who is white, thought he drew a stun gun, not his handgun, when he fired at Eric Harris, who was black, in the April 2 incident.
A video shot by deputies and released Friday at the request of the victim's family shows a deputy chase and tackle Harris, whom they said tried to sell an illegal gun to an undercover officer.
The incident rekindled discussion about the widespread use of reserve officers, including many authorized to carry firearms even though they generally undergo far less training than regular officers. While there's no current official tally, an article in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin in 2006 estimated the national total of reserve officers at 400,000.
In Oklahoma, every reserve deputy is required to complete a minimum of 240 hours of training on legal basics, investigative procedures and use of firearms. Reserve deputies in Tulsa County get even more training — 320 hours — but that is still only half the requirement for a regular full-time officer.
Ex-Blackwater guards plan appeal after judge hands down sentences in Iraq shooting deaths
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense lawyers are vowing to appeal the convictions of four former Blackwater security guards after a federal judge handed down lengthy prison terms for their roles in a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq.
Attorneys identified several issues Monday as likely forming the basis of an appeal, including vindictive prosecution and whether State Department contractors could be charged under a federal law that covers the overseas crimes of Defense Department civilian employees.
The move comes after U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced former guard Nicholas Slatten to life in prison and three others to 30-year terms for their roles in the shootings that killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others.
Slatten, who witnesses said was the first to fire shots in the melee, was sentenced to life after being convicted last October of first-degree murder. The three other guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — were each sentenced to 30 years and one day in prison for charges that included manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using firearms while committing a felony.
The incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square strained U.S.-Iraq relations and caused an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone.
Mother of S. Korea ferry victim visits son's desk at school to cope with grief, rage
ANSAN, South Korea (AP) — Once or twice a week, a mother's ritual begins.
Shin Jumja applies pink lipstick and face powder, gets in her car and drives to the high school her oldest son attended before his death. Sometimes she brings a colorful plant.
She passes students running in the hallways and steps into his quiet, empty classroom. As the outside noises fade, she walks to the front right corner where a framed picture of her 17-year-old son, Jeong Hwi-bum, smiles back at her from his desk.
He and 249 other students from Danwon High School died a year ago in the sinking of the ferry Sewol. All told, more than 300 people were killed.
Shin gazes at the picture of her son in his dark gray school uniform. As she wipes several of the desks and chairs with tissues, her eyes moisten. Sunlight pours in from the windows onto the potted plants, many with yellow or orange flowers, which sit on nearly all the desks in memory of the children.
New candidates mount challenge as Spain's leading parties feel voter anger seen across Europe
MADRID (AP) — Europe's political upheavals are knocking on Spain's door. Two upstart parties that hardly registered one year ago are mounting an unprecedented challenge to the governing Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party — which for four decades have dominated Spanish politics.
A poll published Sunday in El Pais placed the radical-left Podemos ("We Can") and the grass-roots movement Ciudadanos ("Citizens") roughly neck-and-neck with their established rivals ahead of next month's local and regional elections. The four were separated by less than three percentage points.
It's the latest in a political sea change seen across Europe — from Greece to Britain — as voters express frustration with traditional parties struggling to reverse economic hard times brought on by the continent's financial crisis.
"The political effects of the crisis are going to be long-lasting," said Antonio Roldan of think-tank Eurasia Group. "There is definitely a deep transformation."
Greece's Syriza government — a new coalition of the radical left and nationalist right — was elected in January on promises to scrap the austerity measures imposed in return for Greece's two international bailouts, worth a total of 240 billion euros ($253 billion). Hard bargaining with Greece's creditors has made Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' government popular, with many Greeks saying they have regained a sense of national pride.
Even with surge in new apartment construction, most US renters can expect rent hikes this year
Living in an apartment? Expect your rent to go up again.
Renting has gotten increasingly expensive over the last five years. The average U.S. rent has climbed 14 percent to $1,124 since 2010, according to commercial property tracker Reis Inc. That's four percentage points faster than inflation, and more than double the rise in U.S. home prices over the same period.
Now, despite a surge in apartment construction, rents are projected to rise yet another 3.3 percent this year, to an average $1,161, according to Reis. While that's slower than last year's 3.6 percent increase, the broader upward trend isn't going away.
"The only relief in sight is rents in the hottest markets are going to go up at a slower pace, but they're still going to go up," says Hessam Nadji, chief strategy officer at Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real estate services firm.
The main reason: More people than ever are apartment hunting.
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