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• PARIS (AP) -- New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has held his first official meeting with France's leadership amid increasing efforts by both countries to bolster Syria's opposition.
• Kerry met Wednesday with French President Francois Hollande in Paris, chatting in French on the front steps of the Elysee Palace.
• The war in Syria and Iran's nuclear program have topped the agenda of Kerry's tour of Europe and the Middle East.
• Officials in the United States and Europe said Tuesday the U.S. administration is nearing a decision on whether to provide non-lethal assistance to carefully vetted fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
• France, Syria's onetime colonial ruler, is also seeking ways to provide more support for Syria's opposition coalition after two years of fighting Assad's government crackdown.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to warn just what could happen if automatic budget cuts kick in. Americans are reacting with a collective yawn.
• They know the shtick: Obama raises the alarm, Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of holding a deal hostage, there's a lot of yelling on cable news, and then finally, when everyone has made their points, a deal is struck and the day is saved.
• Maybe not this time. Two days before $85 billion in cuts are set to hit federal programs with all the precision of a wrecking ball, there are no signs that the White House and Republicans in Congress are even negotiating. Both sides appear quietly resigned to the prospect that this is one bullet we just may not dodge.
• Still, for all the grim predictions, Americans seem to be flipping the channel to something a little less, well, boring. They wonder, haven't we been here before?
• It's like deja vu, says Patrick Naylon, who runs an audiovisual firm in San Francisco: "The same stuff, over and over again."

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