Putin's leverage with Assad

March 15, 2016 - Daily News Briefing

Russian air power saved the Syrian regime. Without it, the regime will have to compromise with its opponents.

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President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial pullout of the Russian military from Syria Monday, voicing hope the move will contribute to the success of Syria peace talks. The start of the negotiations in Geneva offers the Russian president an opportune moment to declare an official end to the five-and-a-half-month Russian air campaign that has allowed the Syrian army to win back some key ground. Halting the military action now would allow Putin to cash in on his gains and pose as a peacemaker. At the same time, Putin made it clear that Russia will maintain its air base and a naval facility in Syria and keep some troops there.

Seven cars on a Chicago-bound Amtrak passenger train derailed in southwestern Kansas early on Monday, injuring 32 people, two critically, officials said. The coaches from Amtrak's Southwest Chief Train 4 traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago derailed about 20 miles west of Dodge City shortly after midnight, Amtrak said in a statement. About 128 passengers and 14 crew were aboard.

Turkey's air force hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Monday, hours after a suicide car bombing in the capital killed 37 people and heightened tensions with the militants. Jets raided 18 positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq, including the Qandil mountains where the group's leadership is based, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Police, meanwhile, carried out raids in the southern city of Adana, detaining suspected 38 suspected PKK rebels, the agency reported. Fifteen suspected Kurdish militants were also detained in Istanbul, Anadolu said.

Louisiana and Mississippi emergency officials nervously eye the rising Pearl River which runs along the border of the two states, as more rain is predicted for later this week. Flooding began last week and has already damaged thousands of homes across the region and claimed at least four lives in Louisiana. In Mississippi, the hunt continued Sunday for two missing fishermen. And this isn't the first time the Pearl River has surged over its banks. The National Weather Service predicts the river could reach 21 feet late Monday, which would bring it to the same level as the 1983 flood that expanded the Pearl River over a mile beyond its banks.

The US Department of Justice is asking state court systems to find alternatives to fees and fines imposed on poor defendants that it says erode community trust and violate the Constitution. State court systems operate independently from the Justice Department, and the memo sent Monday from the Department's Civil Rights Division is meant to alert local judges to the fact that levying excessive fines on poor defendants – and jailing them if, as is often the case, they can't pay – can violate federal law and open the door to constitutional challenges.

Since Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away last month, both major political parties have been making preparations for a broad, expensive, and protracted political war over who will replace him. With President Obama expected to announce his nominee as early as this week, the Republican Party is ready to launch its first attack, a multi-pronged campaign of attack ads, petitions, and media outreach that will target not only Mr. Obama's nominee, but some vulnerable Democratic senators as well. The Democratic Party and a number of liberal advocacy groups have been making similar preparations for a month, as well.

Traffic around Mars is about to get a bit heavier. The European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency on Monday launched a probe in a joint mission to explore Mars. The mission, dubbed ExoMars, aims to bring humanity another step closer to setting foot on the Red Planet and perhaps discovering extraterrestrial life. The spacecraft blasted into space atop a Proton rocket from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan Monday. Atop the rocket is an orbiter to study the Martian atmosphere and a lander, Schiaparelli, that will serve as a prototype for the second phase of the ExoMars mission, a rover scheduled to launch in 2018.

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