United States

Lolo Moliga has asked the US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker to reject the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council's resolution to allow longliners access.

If the council's resolution is approved it would temporarily allow vessels of 15 metres or longer to fish within 20 kilometres of the territory's shores.

At the moment the area up to 80 kilometres offshore is reserved for alia fishing.

President Barack Obama, in turn, hailed the pontiff as a moral force who is "shaking us out of our complacency" with reminders to care for the poor and the planet.

The White House mustered all the pageantry it had to offer as the pope arrived Wednesday before adoring crowds of thousands and a nation that seemingly cannot get enough of the humble pontiff who is rejuvenating American Catholicism while giving heartburn to some of its conservatives.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has said he was not morally obligated to defend US President Barack Obama after he let pass unchallenged a questioner's assertion that the US leader is a Muslim.

In a rapid-fire series of tweets on Saturday, the billionaire real estate mogul responded to a barrage of criticism of his handling of the incident, which came from Democrats and one fellow Republican candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

U.S. officials say Russia moved a small number of fighter jets to a base in Syria on Friday, hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter talked with Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the first military contacts between the two countries in some time.

"Clearly, the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity ... raises serious questions," Kerry said, responding to a question after meeting with British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond.

He will be offering a show of solidarity with Cubans and making clear that Hispanics in the United States are the bedrock of the American church.

The visit boasts several firsts for history's first Latin American pope: Francis will become the first pope to address the U.S. Congress and he will also proclaim the first saint on U.S. soil by canonizing the controversial (and Hispanic) missionary, Junipero Serra.

For the past 15 years, Marshall Islanders have been deported from the United States at an annual rate of 16 per year, according to government data.

But the numbers increased dramatically from 2011.

The larger numbers also coincide with ongoing heavy out-migration to the United States that has seen an average of over 1,000 islanders leaving to the U.S. annually since the late 1990s.

More than 30,000 Marshall Islanders are estimated to be living in the U.S.  

Government data indicates that over the past 15 years, there's a rate of sixteen deportations of Marshall Islanders per year.

While there's been a slight decline in the deportation rate this year, overall the numbers have increased dramatically from 2011. It coincides with ongoing heavy Marshallese out-migration to the US, with an average of over 1,000 islanders leaving to the US annually since the late 1990s.

This is a question the latest economic review of the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia, issued last week, suggests should be asked by officials from these two north Pacific nations.

The Graduate School USA, which produces annual economic reports on these three U.S.-affiliated nations, includes an assessment in the reports of the U.S.-funded national trust funds now being capitalized to provide a funding source to the island governments when U.S grant funding ends after 2023.

The extraordinary gesture on Sept. 22 is just the beginning of the pomp and protocol that Washington will put on display to welcome the popular leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics and the head of Vatican City on his first U.S. visit.

The next day, Francis will be just the third pope to visit the White House, being greeted as most heads of state are, with his car pulling slowly up the South Lawn's driveway to the spot where a red carpet will be rolled out and Obama and his wife, Michelle, will be waiting.

Two officials and a congressional aide said that Secretary of State John Kerry told members of Congress in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the United States will boost its worldwide quota for resettling refugees from 70,000 to 75,000 next year, a number that could increase further. A fraction of those would be from Syria.

Kerry said after the meeting that the United States would increase the number of refugees it is willing to take in but did not give a specific number.