From a frozen island, warm hearts for Syria's refugees

September 21, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

A State Department official expects a 'steep' increase in the number of Syrian refugees taken by the US – catching the spirit of an Icelandic Samaritan.

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Alexis Tsipras, head of the left-wing Syriza party who won Greece's parliamentary election for the second time this year on Sunday, says he will form a coalition government with the small right-wing Independent Greeks. Speaking before thousands of jubilant supporters in central Athens, Tsipras said he was joining forces once again with Panos Kammenos, the junior coalition partner with whom he governed from January until last month. Kammenos joined him on stage to rapturous applause from the crowd.

Speaking before thousands gathered in Havana, Pope Francis begged Colombia's government and largest guerrilla army to end South America's longest-running conflict, saying they cannot allow another failure to derail peace efforts. Francis issued the appeal Sunday from Revolution Plaza in Havana, where peace talks underway for more than two years between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and representatives of Bogota aim to end a half-century of fighting. He said: "May the blood shed by thousands of innocent people during long decades of armed conflict" sustain efforts to find a definitive peace.

By early Sunday evening about 8,000 asylum seekers had gathered in the Austrian border town of Nickelsdorf, most of them crossing over from Hungary. They all lined up in a town square waiting for buses to relocate them. Austrian soldiers formed a barrier around them while local officials struggled to find accommodation for them because many camps were already overcrowded.

Scrambling to address a growing Syrian refugee crisis, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Sunday that the United States would significantly increase the number of worldwide refugees it takes in over the next two years, though not by nearly the amount many activists and former officials have urged. The U.S. will accept 85,000 refugees from around the world next year, up from 70,000, and that total would rise to 100,000 in 2017, Kerry said at news conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the two discussed the mass migration of Syrians fleeing their civil war.

Flush toilets and running water are elusive dreams for Paul Dock and other residents of impoverished Alaska villages where indoor plumbing has historically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to install in just one home. Residents in at least 30 isolated communities far from the state's meager road system are mired in Third World conditions despite more than $2 billion in federal and state money over the past 50 years to provide basics like running water that most Americans take for granted. But with the state facing increasingly tight budgets, the days of springing for traditional piped water and sewer systems are gone, leaving residents in unserved communities to continue to rely on outhouses or the honey bucket system — large buckets that serve as toilets.

A new wildfire in Northern California has killed one person and destroyed or damaged 10 homes in Monterey County, a week after two other blazes killed five people and destroyed at least 1,400 homes, fire officials said Sunday. The blaze burning about 2 miles north of the community of Jamesburg in Monterey County quickly grew to 1,200-acres after starting Saturday afternoon, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The person who died has not been identified.

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