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 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.

There's been lots of talk about how the Supreme Court's landmark decision to uphold the health care law could affect the federal Medicaid program and President Obama's political standing. But days after the historic ruling, lawyers say they're still teasing out the consequences for other key areas of the law — including civil rights.

At first blush, it might seem odd that a case about the Affordable Care Act would send civil rights experts scrambling back to their law books.