All Things Considered

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. The big news from Washington today may not sound like big new. The unemployment rate remains stuck at 8.2 percent in June. Hiring was virtually flat compared to the prior months, with a meager 80,000 jobs added to the payrolls. But these days, the weak economy is increasingly a political story as NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. The third and largest gathering of the so-called Friends of Syria took place in Paris today. Envoys from 107 nations came together to discuss how to put an end to almost 16 months of violence that has left thousands of people dead.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel. Major League Baseball's 83rd all-star game will be played on Tuesday in Kansas City. To talk about baseball at the halfway point in the season, we are joined now, as we are most Fridays, by sportswriter Stefan Fatsis.

Hi, Stefan.

STEFAN FATSIS, BYLINE: Hey, Robert.

SIEGEL: And going down the all-star rosters, it looks like a lot of new names in this game.

A commander in Syria's Republican Guard whose family has been close to the family of Syrian President Bashar Assad has reportedly defected and is headed to France. That's where diplomats from more than 100 countries are meeting to discuss ways to put more pressure on Assad to end a brutal crackdown on his opponents that has left more than 10,000 civilians dead.

As NPR's Peter Kenyon tells our Newscast Desk, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told those gathered for the so-called Friends of Syria conference in Paris that Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass is on his way to France.