Obama presses Congress on Islamic State in State of the Union speech

US President Barack Obama asked Congress Tuesday to authorise military action against Islamic State extremists, saying the US can defeat them without being “dragged into another ground war in the Middle East.”

In his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, Obama put the burden on Republicans, many critical of his leadership, to support his strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the group in Iraq and Syria. ...