Syria

A network of volunteers based in Seattle, founded in part as a response to the Gulf War, is coordinating deliveries of aid to earthquake survivors in Syria.

The finding is consistent with experts' suspicions. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons stopped short of saying who was responsible. The U.S. blames the Syrian regime.

Named Operation OKRA, the Australian Defense Force's effort to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria includes about 780 personnel.

Russia also says it will suspend its participation in a "deconfliction" line that was established to prevent inadvertent clashes with U.S. warplanes.

A human rights group finds itself with an interesting problem — an overwhelming number of videos to catalog as it builds legal cases. Computer scientists are creating tools to analyze the videos.

"We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place" in a military prison outside Damascus, a State Department official said Monday.

The Russia-brokered deal is backed by regional heavyweights Iran and Turkey. But it remains to be seen whether this deal will be any different than other truces that have failed to stop the violence.

Half of private donors to Syrian students are funding educational technology, a report says. It's not necessarily what schools need, one co-author says, considering they may lack reliable electricity.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says most of the victims were families evacuating from two Shiite villages, Fuaa and Kefraya, long besieged by rebels. No group has claimed responsibility.

In northern Syria, residents of Shia minority villages, long besieged by rebels, are leaving. Hundreds of miles away, two towns besieged by Syrian troops and their allies have started evacuating.