WASHINGTON — Working to ease public jitters ahead of the holidays, President Barack Obama will use visits to the Pentagon and the National Counterterrorism Center this week to try to explain his strategy for stopping the Islamic State group abroad and its sympathizers at home. 

PRESIDENTIAL RACE-TRUMP-MUSLIMS

WASHINGTON — There's no legal or historical precedent for closing U.S. borders to the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, but neither is there any Supreme Court case that clearly prevents a president or Congress from doing so. 

BRAZIL-IMPEACHMENT PROTESTS

RIO DE JANEIRO — Thousands of Brazilians march to demand that Congress impeach President Dilma Rousseff, whose government is plagued by an overwhelming corruption scandal and a dismal economy. 

URGUAY-DICTATORSHIP VICTIMS

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Fearful the remains of loved ones may never be recovered, families of victims of Uruguay's dictatorship are promising anonymity to anyone, including aging perpetrators, who come forward with information. Forty years after brutal dictatorships swept across South America, Uruguay is one of several nations still struggling with how to get closure, and justice, for victims. 

VANDALIZED MOSQUES

HAWTHORNE, California — Vandals spray-paint graffiti at two mosques in the California city of Hawthorne and leave a device that looked like a hand grenade in the driveway of one of the mosques, prompting police to investigate both incidents as a hate crime.