Special veterans court marks 25th anniversary
By Bill Mears
The tiny courtroom tucked away in a downtown office building had almost no spectators on a recent Thursday.
And the cases being argued before a panel of judges were not blockbusters or precedent-setting in any way.
But to current and former military men and women seeking judicial relief, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is a legal lifeline. Perhaps it is their last chance to get the full disability compensation they believe they're owed.
The nation's newest federal court is celebrating its 25th anniversary this week, giving those who served in the military a chance to challenge individual decisions made by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The court's work is little noticed, but legal experts and veterans advocates say it provides an invaluable service.
"That we have a specialized veteran's court is a credit to our national commitment to do justice by 'him who shall have borne the battle' in President Lincoln's words,'" said Justice Antonin Scalia in April.
FULL STORYGraham to keep holds on Obama nominees
By CNN's Jason Seher
Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed on Sunday that he would continue to block President Barack Obama's nominations until Congress hears from Benghazi survivors.
The South Carolina lawmaker told CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union" that he will place holds on any nomination put forth by the administration unless it makes available five survivors of the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, who have been interviewed by State Department investigators but remain out of Congress' reach.
"I've been trying for a year to get these interviews without holds," Graham said.
Graham scoffed at any notion his maneuver amounts to political grandstanding, portraying his actions as a last resort and couching them as part of "trying to perform oversight."
"I don't want to hold anybody. All I want to do is talk to the survivors," Graham insisted. "I'm not trying to prosecute a crime."
Graham announced his intention to hold all of Obama’s nominations the day after CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a controversial report on the attacks. The newsmagazine has since pulled its report, saying that its eyewitness, a British contractor stationed in Libya, lied to reporter Lara Logan about what he saw on the ground.
When pressed by Crowley about whether the debunking of the piece would impact his stance, Graham told her it wouldn’t.
"I never asked for the British contractor. I didn't know he existed," Graham said.
Kerry ‘not blind’ to Rouhani's past
By CNN's Jason Seher
America's top diplomat dismissed concerns Sunday that the Obama administration was not being skeptical enough while the U.S. negotiates with Iran over its continued enrichment of uranium, activity widely assumed to be supporting a nuclear weapons program.
Secretary of State John Kerry emphatically told David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that "we are not blind, and I don't think we're stupid" when it comes to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's past claims that he could game the Western world in brokered talks while his nation continued to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
Kerry's remarks came the morning after three days of intensive talks about Iran's nuclear program concluded early Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, without an agreement. While the key players, including Kerry, insisted the process continues to move in the right direction, the talks raised fears among U.S. allies that Iran was presenting a disingenous front and has no real intention of slowing its march toward weaponizing its nuclear technology.
FULL STORYGraham: New sanctions on Iran needed
By CNN's Jason Seher
After three days of talks focused on halting Iran's uranium enrichment efforts broke down Sunday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Congress would not wait for the next round of negotiations.
Graham said he intends to put forward a measure that would mandate more sanctions on Iran, aimed at forcing the Middle Eastern nation to dismantle its nuclear weapons program - a move that runs counter to the interim steps sought by the negotiating parties gathered in Geneva, Switzerland.
"We're worried about the endgame, not some interim deal," Graham told CNN's chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley, on "State of the Union," repeatedly asserting that "you can't trust the Iranians" and questioning whether they actually intend to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Graham said Iran's President Hassan Rouhani would have to comply with four separate preconditions in order to avoid a new round of crippling sanctions: Stop enriching uranium and other nuclear materials; dismantle centrifuges used in nuclear production; halt the country's plutonium-producing reactor; and place its fuel cycle under international control.
Report: Strides, challenges for Afghan security forces
By Joe Sterling
CNN
CNN
In what a new Pentagon report calls "a fundamental shift in the course" of the Afghan conflict, local security forces are improving their performance and "successfully providing security for their own people."
But according to a report to Congress on Friday, the successes come with a cost: a sharp increase in security force casualties during this year's April to September fighting season and challenges remaining for the indigenous force after U.S. forces leave.
This snapshot of the security forces is all-important as the United States prepares to withdraw all of its troops from the country by the end of next year.
The report said the Afghan National Security Forces "have seen their capabilities expand rapidly since 2009, while insurgent territorial influence and kinetic capabilities have remained static." But the report also says more needs to be done.
Russian LGBT activists in U.S. to lobby against anti-gay law
By Jill Dougherty
Lyudmila Romodina and Oleg Klyuenkov, LGBT activists from the northern Russian port city of Arkhangelsk, hate Russia's anti-gay "propaganda" law but they don't support the idea of a boycott of the Sochi Olympics in Russia as a way of protesting it.
The two members of the LGBT rights organization "Rakurs," which means "Perspective" in Russian, say they hope the Olympics, which will be held in February in the southern Russian city of Sochi, might help to shine a light on discrimination against gay people in Russia, as well as spur discussion.
"We don't want any extra rights" but gay people in Russia do want rights that are equal to those of their fellow Russians, Klyuenkov told CNN in an interview in Washington during a 10-day visit to the United States.
FULL STORYPentagon investigation: Petraeus did not want top honor for soldier
A nagging mystery of the Afghanistan war was why one Marine and one soldier were awarded Medals of Honor for their role in the same battle, but the honor was conferred nearly two years apart.
Turns out part of the reason is that Gen. David Petraeus, who once served as the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, didn't think the soldier, Army Capt. William Swenson, deserved the nation's highest award for valor.
Swenson three times exposed himself to overwhelming enemy fire to try to rescue wounded U.S. and Afghan troops during the Battle of Ganjgal in eastern Afghanistan in 2009.
Two years later, Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer was decorated with a Medal of Honor for similar actions in the same battle. Swenson was also recommended for the medal but his case became lost in the military bureaucracy.
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