TODAY'S TALKING POINTS 09-11-15

TODAY'S TALKING POINTS

The president vowed to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees. The country’s already on track to take in 1,500 refugees, but the president gave the order to scale that number up over the next fiscal year. A petition and numerous calls for the U.S. to take action have swept the Internet, but critics have said this help falls short of what’s needed to truly end the crisis.

Syria isn't a great place to be right now. A U.S. official claims the Islamic State group is making and using chemical weapons, and there have been at least four incidents on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border that prove it. Russia, which currently heads the U.N. Security Council, had opposed an investigation into the wider use of chemical weapons in Syria out of fear it could get officials in its ally country in trouble. But on Thursday, Russia agreed tosupport a probe into who else might be using banned chemical weapons.

Groundbreaking funding came through for rape kits. Vice President Joe Biden and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. pledged $79 million to fight the backlog of untested rape kits in police stations across the country. The funding will expedite testing and help put rapists behind bars.

Senate Democrats secured another win for the Iran deal. Though Republicans tried to pass a resolution of disapproval, it fell short by two votes with a 58-42 margin, handing a victory to President Barack Obama. Here's why they wanted to shut the deal down.

New York’s governor proposed raising the minimum wage statewide. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York state will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 for fast-food workers — but he stressed that that’s not enough. Since you can’t actually afford rent in some areas of New York with a minimum wage job, Cuomo made a bid for expanding that minimum to all workers. If it’s implemented, it would create the nation’s highest statewide pay floor (paywall).