At least 15 are dead in Syria today as the U.N. attempts to enforce a truce between rebels and president Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Those killed in the ongoing violent clashes reportedly include soldiers, journalists, civilians, and at least one child. Military observers from the U.N. are currently in the area with the objective of negotiating a ceasefire.

At least six suspected al Qaeda–associated militants appear to have been killed by U.S. drones Saturday in Yemen following the announcement earlier this week that U.S. officials prevented an attempted suicide bombing against the U.S. by members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemeni officials reportedly killed 15 other potential Qaeda militants today as well. Yemeni civilians were warned by leaflets dropped by Air Force planes to vacate the area ahead of the offensive.

At the same time President Obama is finally embracing his gay supporters, Mitt Romney is alienating his. The presidential hopeful's speech Saturday at Liberty University, founded by the late religious leader Jerry Falwell, drew the ire of gay-conservative group GOProud because of, according to a statement from the group's cofounder, Falwell's controversial comments about AIDS. Romney may have made a point to avoid the topic of religion during his speech—because the evangelical school teaches that his religion, Mormonism, is a cult—but he did give a shout-out to Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chain that donates millions of dollars to anti-gay-rights groups. 

The word "chaos" is, after all, is derived from Greek. And the political landscape of the country continued to shift this week as Syriza, a hard-left party, led polls but seemed to be losing support to more moderate parties that support the country’s bailout. In a vote last Sunday that was widely seen as a referendum against the unpopular international bailout, voters kept any one party from forming a majority. On Saturday, Greek Preident Kaolos Papoulias tried to bring leaders together one last time to avert an election and impending bankruptcy. A spokesman for Syriza said Saturday that the party would not participate in any government attempt to implement a bailout.

The first rule of gambling is to know when to fold ’em. But after the creation of the Volcker Rule, a regulatory law meant to prevent overly risky trading, JPMorgan Chase sent lobbyists to Washington to argue for loopholes that would allow for trades much like those that led to a $2 billion loss announced by the bank Friday. Bank chief executive Jamie Dimon and other members of upper management paid regular visits to lawmakers to argue that, while they thought some parts of the rule were useful, others would hurt the bank’s ability to hedge against risk. The result, said Sen. Carl Levin, was a “big enough loophole that a Mack truck could drive right through it.”

A plane crash killed four people on their way to a Christian youth conference in southeastern Kansas Saturday. Only one passenger survived after the small aircraft touched down in a field, hit a tree, and caught on fire. Those aboard the plane were the pilot, three recent Oral Roberts University graduates, and a former College of Business instructor. “Please pray for all of the families that lost loved ones and for Hannah in the hospital. Pray for God’s peace to be with all of them and pray for Hannah’s healing,” the Oral Roberts president wrote on the school’s Facebook page today.

The religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism said Sunday that he has been warned about possible threats against his life by Chinese agents. The 76-year-old Dalai Lama said the agents, disguised as female Buddhists, may have been sent to poison him. In addition to being a spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama was until recently the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and the Nobel Prize winner lives under careful protection near the Himalayan foothills in Dharamsala. Relations between the Chinese and Tibetans have been strained over the past year, with more than 30 Tibetans self-immolating last year in protest of Chinese rule.

Twelve-year-old Alexandria Bain reportedly told her sister, Kyliyah, 8, “Now we can go home” in the moments after their kidnapper and the killer of their mother and other sister shot himself on Thursday night. Police found the two girls and Adam Mayes in the woods near Zion Hill Baptist Church in Mississippi on Thursday. When Mississippi Highway Patrol Master Sgt. Steve Crawford finally came upon Mayes after a search that went on for days, Mayes wordlessly fired a bullet into his own head. The two little girls did not cry, according to officials, but instead looked relieved. Mayes took the girls and killed their mother and sister on April 27.

In Jeff Himmelman’s biography of Ben Bradlee, he wrote about two of the biggest influences in his life: Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee. But even though Himmelman concedes in his book, Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee, that “writing about your mentor’s mentor is a trickier proposition than it seems,” the reaction by Woodward and Bradlee—and many of their friends in the inner Washington circle—have completely shut Himmelman out, with Woodward saying Himmelman was “utterly dishonest in his reporting.” Bradlee’s wife, Sally Quinn, said she has “nothing to say about Himmelman,” but Woodward says Himmelman “shamelessly used” Bradlee. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, a longtime friend of the Bradlees, said the Bradlees were “absolutely mortified” by the book’s personal details and feel “utterly betrayed.”

Tom and Misha have been returned to the sea! The two dolphins were rescued from a pool at a resort in Turkey and are now swimming on their own for the first time in years. “It’s unbelievable to see them travel this hard and fast,” said one of the sea-mammal experts involved in the dolphins’ rehabilitation and release. “The assumption is that they’re going back to the area that they were a pod in. They’re definitely on a mission.” After being rescued, Tom and Misha became a part of the U.K.’s Born Free Foundation, a program that works to reintegrate captured dolphins into the wild.

The jury that found 31-year-old William Balfour guilty in the murder of singer Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew said that they weren’t swayed by Hudson’s star power. “This wasn’t about her,” Jacinta Gholston, a juror in the case, told reporters Friday after Balfour was convicted on three counts of murder in the first degree. The former gang member will face Illinois’s stiffest penalty, a mandatory life sentence. Hudson, who cried as the verdict against her mother’s killer was read, issued a statement with her sister Friday that extended their sympathy to Balfour’s family, saying “we have all suffered terrible loss in this tragedy.”

Barack Obama just earned the grandmother stamp of approval. Actress, television personality, and grandmotherly ideal Betty White told reporters Friday that she “very, very much favors” the current occupant of the White House for the upcoming election. The 90-year-old former Mary Tyler Moore Show star said that President Obama has earned four more years for “how he represents us.” White said she doesn’t wade into the mess of political debates very often, and usually keeps her opinions to herself to avoid turning off fans who hold different views.

Be a man, was Rick Santorum’s message to Mitt Romney in an interview on an Arkansas CNN affiliate Friday night. The former Republican candidate, who issued a somewhat tepid endorsement of Romney after dropping out of the race, urged Mitt to “step up”—it’s time to turn President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage against him. “This is a very potent weapon, if you will, for Governor Romney if he’s willing to step up and take advantage of a president who is very much out of touch with the values of America,” Santorum said.

The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that water in Dimrock, Pa., does not show hazardous levels of contaminants linked to fracking, the agency announced Friday. Homeowners in the town had filed complaints saying that their water appeared clouded and could be lit on fire. After testing 61 wells in the town, the EPA concluded that water in the town did not show contamination beyond the federal standards set for drinking. According to the agency, one home in the town did test for high levels of methane, but the EPA does not set standard for the presence of the gas. An earlier series of tests found elevated levels of contaminants at four well, and the agency said it will retest those.

The Down Jones industrial average closed its worst week this year Friday, falling 1.7 percent overall, the worst decline since January. Much of that activity—83 percent of it, in fact—was attributable to a drop in JPMorgan Chase stock after the bank announced it had lost $2 billion in a series of trades. JPMorgan’s stock fell $3.78. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dipped 4.6 points, while the NASDAQ lifted slightly. JPMorgan has said that it could suffer as much as $1 billion in additional second-quarter losses. Analysts said that the bad news for the Dow may be more a blip than anything else, as the market looked strong overall in the first quarter.

Marriage is an “enduring institution,” Mitt Romney said in his speech at Liberty University on Saturday, a “relationship between one man and one woman.” Romney’s much-anticipated speech at the school leaned heavily on themes of Christian faith—even on a campus where the school paper wrote, “Mitt Romney was announced as Liberty’s 39th commencement speaker, great—but he is a Mormon.” In his speech, Romney focused on wooing evangelical conservatives, and tied what he saw as Christian values to American success. Romney told the graduates, “Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life.”

The most critical pushback against President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage may come as churchgoing Americans attend services Sunday. Pastors in key election states are preparing to inveigh against the president’s newly announced stance, with some saying that it’s given them new reason to favor Republican candidate Mitt Romney. “We are going to make this our key issue: the attack on marriage,” said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values. While conservative Christians still largely oppose increased rights for gay Americans, Republican pollsters note that support among GOP-ers is growing.

As Mitt Romney prepared to deliver his commencement address at the conservative Liberty University on Saturday, someone had a message for him. A single plane circled overhead towing a banner that read, “GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT.” MoveOn.org took credit for the aerial protest, but Romney will hardly think the issue is out of the blue—he and President Obama take more or less the same position on reducing student-loan debt. The speech has high stakes for Romney, since he will be addressing the evangelical community, many of whom are skeptical of his Mormon religion—Liberty University has called Mormonism a “cult.” Romney plans to address the economy in the speech.

A militant group calling itself the Al-Nusra Front claimed responsibility on Friday for suicide attacks earlier in the week that took 55 lives. The bombings in Damasus were in retaliation for attacks on civilian areas by President Bashar al-Assad and his forces, the militants said in the video. “We fulfilled our promise to respond with strikes and explosions,” a speaker in the video said. Western officials have become increasingly worried about the presence of extremist groups and Islamic militant in the evermore destabilized country. Little is known about Al-Nusra Front, but some intelligence experts suspect it could be a proxy for al Qaeda.

Three American college students studying abroad in New Zealand died Saturday when their van swerved off a road. The students were all from Boston University, and five other BU students were injured in the accident. The accident occurred at about 7:30 a.m. New Zealand time. “This is a horrible tragedy,” said BU president Robert A. Brown. “Our prayers go out to the students and their families.” The director of the BU study abroad office said that about 47 students from the school were in a program at the University of Auckland. Early reports said that the students were in a seven-seater minivan that rolled as students traveled to a day of hiking on the Tongariro Crossing.

As officials in London continue to beef up security in preparation for the Olympic Games in the city this summer, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that it will be deploying a Long Range Acoustic Device, a weapon that can emit ear-splitting beams of sound up to 150 decibels. The device can also be put to more peaceful purposes, including being used as a sort of super-megaphone to broadcast verbal messages. The U.S. Army has used the device in Iraq to issue instructions to large crowds, and has been used on the seas to combat Somali pirates. “As part of the military contribution to the police-led security effort to ensure a safe and secure games, a broad range of assets and equipment is being used by our armed forces,” a Ministry of Defense spokesman told reporters.

A roadside bomb Saturday killed four Afghan policemen in a bloody day that also claimed the lives of four NATO troops, three who were killed by fighting and one of non-battle-related injuries. NATO did not provide the nationalities of the troops who were killed, but they were fighting in a part of southern Afghanistan where security forces clash frequently with militants. Eighteen NATO troops have been killed in the country so far this month. The four police officers were killed when a roadside bomb detonated by their vehicle as it traveled through the district of Qadis, according to local officials.

Pakistan’s army chief and the U.S. commander in Afghanistan met on Saturday to discuss reopening the border between two countries after the U.S. accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in airstrikes. The two aimed to figure out a way to solve the issues that have made the border disorganized and dangerous in the past. The U.S. has yet to provide Pakistan with the apology it has demanded, which is presumed to be the reason why the Pakistani government has so far refused to cooperate in reopening the border. That, and the fact that the U.S. has no intention of halting drone strikes in Pakistan, something else the country has requested.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, son of relentless Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, spoke at an event for the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition in Des Moines on Friday night. Paul encouraged support for his father's campaign and eventually the conversation turned to the news of the week: President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage. "Call me cynical," said Paul. "But I didn't think his views on marriage could get any gayer."