Music fell silent, weddings were canceled and people wept in the streets Saturday as Cubans faced their first day without the leader who steered their island to both greater social equality and years of economic ruin. Across a hushed capital, dozens of Cubans said they felt genuine pain at...

(The Guardian)- Britain’s home secretary is being urged by MPs to allow refugees from the Yazidi community, a minority Iraqi group persecuted by Islamic State, to enter the UK under the same rules that allow entrance to vulnerable Syrian refugees. In a letter to Amber Rudd (pdf), a...

(Sky News)- Not just unlikely, nor merely undesirable, but "impossible" says Britain's closest ally about the desire to negotiate a full exit deal from the EU within the two-year time frame. It was an unexpectedly strong intervention from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, speaking to me on...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Regime forces based in the southern Damascus suburbs of Sidi Maqdad have been imposing royalties on the people of the next-door towns of Babila and Bait Sahem for allowing the entry of basic food staples, local reporter said.  The prices of basic items of food and...