Earlier this month, Syrian regime forces hoisted their flag above the southern town of Daraa and celebrated. Although there is more bloodletting to come, the symbolism was hard to miss. The uprising that began in that town on March 6, 2011, has finally been crushed, and the civil war that has engulfed the country and destabilized parts of the Middle East as well as Europe will be over sooner rather than later. Bashar al-Assad, the man who was supposed to fall in "a matter of time," has prevailed with the help of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah over his own people.

Washington is too busy over the furor of the day to reflect on the fact that there are approximately 500,000 fewer Syrians today than there were when a group of boys spray-painted "The people demand the fall of the regime" on buildings in Daraa more than seven years ago. But now that the Syria conflict has been decided, it's worth thinking about the purpose and place of the United States in the new Middle East. The first order of business is to dispose of the shibboleths that have long been at the core of U.S. foreign policy in the region and have contributed to its confusion and paralysis in Syria and beyond.

There probably isn't anyone inside the Beltway who hasn't been told at some point in their career about the dangers of reasoning by analogy. But that doesn't mean such lessons have been regularly heeded. The Syrian uprising came at a fantastical time in the Middle East when freedom, it seemed, was breaking out everywhere. The demonstration of people power that began in Daraa-coming so soon after the fall of longtime leaders in Tunisia and Egypt-was moving. It also clouded the judgment of diplomats, policymakers, analysts, and journalists, rendering them unable to discern the differences between the region's Assads and Ben Alis or between the structure of the Syrian regime and that of the Egyptian one.

Four more people have been arrested in connection to the alleged sex cult NXIVM, including group leaders with such titles "The Prefect" serving "The Vanguard."

Clare Bronfman, 39; Kathy Russell, 60; Lauren Salzman, 42; and Nancy Salzman, 64, were arrested Tuesday on a superseding indictment charging them with racketeering conspiracy.

Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., is an heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune.

Previously charged and added to the new indictment were group founder Keith Raniere, 57, and former "Smallville" actress Allison Mack, 35.

Troops of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) found a field hospital and a medicine depot, which had belonged to militants in the village of Nabaa al-Sakhar in southern Syria, according to the state-run news agency SANA.

The facilities, which are located in about 16km southeast of the city of Quneitra, included "operating rooms, laboratory, medical equipment and a cache containing large amounts of medicines, some of which are made in Israel and Jordan".

According to the SANA, militants the field hospital was lcoated in one of the schools in Nabaa al-Sakhar.

A woman in Maryland has been airlifted to a hospital after a rental beach umbrella was uprooted by gusty winds and pierced her chest. She is now in stable condition and is likely to survive the freak accident, authorities say.

The 46-year-old woman was impaled by a runaway beach umbrella on Sunday afternoon as she was visiting Ocean City, Maryland. The woman, who was not identified by authorities, reportedly had no chance to react as the rental sunshade was uprooted by the wind and flew across the sand right into her chest.

Lifeguards at the beach rushed to secure the umbrella that continued blowing around.

"Fortunately, it was not life-threatening. But it was significant enough that our EMS personnel didn't feel comfortable removing it. So what they did was actually cut the top part of the umbrella off so she could be transported," Ocean City spokeswoman Jessica Waters said.

Experts have warned about the specific and growing threat posed by women and children who traveled to Syria and Iraq to join jihadists before returning to Britain, claiming statistics have been largely underestimated.

According to research by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King's College London, 850 Britons traveled to Syria and Iraq between April 2013 and last month, including 145 women and 50 minors.

Of the 425 who returned to the UK, only two women and four minors were confirmed as being among them, according to the report 'From Daesh to Diaspora: tracing the women and minors of Islamic State.'

"The British citizens that have now been confirmed as returning to the UK have not been differentiated by gender, or age delineation, though women and minors accounted for 23 percent of British IS affiliates in Syria and Iraq," ICSR researcher Joana Cook said.

Russia's social media blitz to influence the 2016 U.S. election was part of a global "phenomenon" in which a broad spectrum of governments and political parties used Internet platforms to spread junk news and disinformation in at least 48 countries last year, an Oxford University study has found.

Including U.S. government programs aimed at countering extremists such as Islamic fundamentalists, about $500 million has been spent worldwide on research, development or implementation of social media "psychological operations" since 2010, the authors estimated.

"The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public life," the researchers wrote. They warned that, at a time when news consumption is increasingly occurring over the Internet, this trend threatens "to undermine trust in the media, public institutions and science." In an earlier analysis covering 2016, the researchers found governments and political parties had deployed social media to manipulate the public in 28 countries.

Hundreds of people are missing and an unknown number believed dead after the collapse of a hydropower dam in southeast Laos.

The accident happened at the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower dam in the southeastern province of Attapeu on Monday, sparking flash floods in villages in the area and leaving more than 6,000 people homeless.

The dam, which was still under construction, released five billion cubic metres of water, which is equivalent to over two million Olympic swimming pools.

It is not yet known what caused the collapse.

A 35-year-old woman is charged with aggravated kidnapping and trafficking of a child after she and an unnamed man snatched an 11-year-old boy from a San Antonio park, drugged him, sexually assaulted him and attempted to sell him for more narcotics, a Texas Department of Public Safety arrest affidavit obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders says.

Laura Garcia is accused of kidnapping the boy on or around Feb. 22. An affidavit says the child was playing with a friend at the park when Garcia and a man came up to him and pretended to be his parents, telling him it was time to go home.

When the child refused to go with them, an affidavit says, they grabbed him and dragged him to a nearby apartment that had "a lot of drugs and needles around."

The child's friend told investigators he didn't tell authorities about the abduction because he thought Garcia and the man were the boy's parents.

Prime-time liberal comedian Trevor Noah is under fire for past offensive jokes and tweets, particularly one poking fun at Aboriginal women. Noah is one of several liberals currently being dragged through the mud for old jokes.

In a 2013 stand-up routine that recently resurfaced online, Noah jokes that while "all women of every race can be beautiful," he has yet to see a beautiful Aboriginal woman.

"Plus it's not always about looks. Maybe Aboriginal women do special things. Maybe they'll just like, jump on top of you and be like," he continued, making a sexually suggestive gesture.

The video was taken down, and Noah apologized via Twitter, but not before the internet noticed. Australian author and indigenous literature academic Anita Heiss said that she was "disgusted and appalled by the comments," and added that his off-color humor "denigrates Aboriginal women." Some Australians are now calling for a boycott of Noah's upcoming Australian tour.

Dan Harmon, creator of the popular Cartoon Network series Rick and Morty, deleted his Twitter account this week, after a disturbing sketch film that he recorded in 2009 surfaced online. The film was summarized as a parody of the Showtime hit "Dexter," where a vigilante homicide detective hunts down and kills murderers, but the skit was just 5 minutes long and doesn't leave much room for context.

In the video, Harmon introduces himself as the character "Daryl" a therapist who confesses to raping babies. If it was not explicitly stated in the caption that this was intended to be a "Dexter" parody, there would really be no way of knowing, as there is no clear connection with the show or its themes.

"Dexter" is the story of a vigilante cop who kills murderers, while Daryl is the story of a therapist who cons families into allowing him to rape their children.

Some fans of Harmon have rushed to his defense, suggesting that this is dark humor and a matter of free speech. However, there doesn't seem to be any punchline, joke or comedy in the skit, just pedophilia jokes for shock value.