What seemed like a throwaway line by Secretary of State John Kerry has taken on a life its own as U.S. and U.N. have now agreed to consider a Russian plan to avoid U.S. airstrikes by allowing the international community to gain full control of Syria’s chemical weapons. The slowdown in the march towards airstrikes is certainly connected to the uphill battle President Obama faces as he tries to win backing from an increasingly skeptical public and an adversarial Congress.

+ Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in and around Syria is terrible and getting worse. Six million people have been displaced by the war. Here’s a collection of images from InFocus showing the struggles being faced by just a handful of the millions of refugees.