BOSTON – When Carl and Julie Stone discovered four years ago that their third child, Josiah, would be born with trisomy 21, or Down syndrome, they didn't blink.
"It didn't frighten us, it didn't scare us, it didn't make us sad," Stone said. "We simply wanted to spend the last 20 weeks of the pregnancy doing everything we could to give this child every possibility to succeed."
GENEVA (AP) — Lowering expectations about his ability to help end Syria's civil war, the U.N. special envoy announced talks between government and opposition representatives will start on Friday to embark on a six-month process that he hopes will include civil society and women's groups.
Staffan de Mistura raised nearly as many questions as he answered in a news conference in Geneva on Monday, the day when talks had originally been set to begin before tensions over who would be invited, involving countries like Russia and Turkey, forced a delay. He also confirmed comments from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week that the two main sides won't meet face-to-face initially in the "proximity" talks.
