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• Bolstered by infighting among Syrian opposition groups -- including some linked to al-Qaida that have jeopardized foreign aid -- U.S. officials say Assad has a stronger grasp on power now than he did just months ago, when the U.S. and Russia called for a new round of talks to settle the 2 1/2-year war that has killed more than 100,000 people. Still, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Assad's recent gains do not assure his future in a new government.
• How to persuade Assad to step down will be part of the focus Tuesday at a London meeting of 11 nations from the West and Mideast seeking a negotiated settlement to the war.
• "I don't know anybody who believes that the opposition will ever consent to Bashar al-Assad being part of that government," Kerry told reporters Monday in Paris where he was participating in talks about another Mideast crisis, between Israel and Palestinian authorities.
• "But I do not believe that it is dependent on whether you're up or down," Kerry said. "There's a human catastrophe awaiting the world if you can't have a negotiated solution."
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Crammed into conference rooms with pizza for dinner, some programmers building the Obama administration's showcase health insurance website were growing increasingly stressed. Some worked past 10 p.m., energy drinks in hand. Others rewrote computer code over and over to meet what they considered last-minute requests for changes from the government or other contractors.
• As questions mount over the website's failure, insider interviews and a review of technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.
• Project developers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity -- because they feared they would otherwise be fired -- said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
• A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the sys

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