USA –   Here’s a concept new to the 2016 campaign: Donald Trump and détente. Trump, who built a campaign on lambasting Republican elites, yesterday came to the citadel of the political establishment  Capitol Hill for a summit with House Speaker Paul Ryan and other party leaders designed to halt the GOP’s self-immolation.

From the moment the billionaire’s Boeing 757 rolled to a stop to the moment when it lifted into the steel gray skies over Ronald Reagan National Airport nearly six hours later, he whipped up an extraordinary spectacle perhaps a taste of what is to come if he is elected president. It was a day, as CNN’s Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta put it, that was about Republicans beginning to build a “tent big enough for the circus that you have seen roll into town.”…[+]

USA   –  The U.S. Navy officer who oversaw the 10 sailors captured and briefly detained by Iran earlier this year has been relieved of his duties due to “loss of confidence” in his ability, the Navy announced yesterday.

Cmdr. Eric Rasch was fired from his job as the commanding officer of Coastal Riverine Squadron 3 and temporarily reassigned. These type of personnel actions typically result in the officer then retiring from active duty. Rasch had recently taken command of the unit after serving as the No. 2 during January when the incident occurred. Capt. Gary Leigh, the commander of the overall group, made the determination after a preliminary Navy investigation into the incident near Iran’s Farsi Island in the Arabian Gulf over January 12 and 13. CNN has not yet reached out to Rasch for comment. Far from its home port in San Diego, the squadron’s job in the Gulf was to provide maritime security and escort duty for other ships. The boat the 10 sailors were on was in routine transit at the time. .(CNN.COM)…[+]

BELGIUM   –  “Congratulations,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Your son died as a martyr.” Then nothing no explanation, no details, no body to bury.

The unknown man simply hung up the phone, leaving Saliha Ben Ali reeling, her world shattered. Her 18-year-old son, Sabri Refla, who told her he had left their Brussels home and gone to Syria to fight Bashar al-Assad and “help orphans,” was dead. For Ben Ali, her “life stopped there.” “It was horrible,” she remembers, tears in her eyes. “When I heard about his death I felt like I died myself.” She thought nothing could be worse than the loss of her beloved boy. Now, she says, she knows better and she feels as though her son has died for a second time. Sabri Refla had been recruited by a Brussels-based network which radicalized dozens of youths, alienated them from their parents, and financed their trips to Syria, court records show. Ben Ali says her son was smart and athletic, the happiest of her four children, but that he had a sensitive side..(CNN.COM)…[+]