UNESCO — The United States lost its vote at UNESCO on Friday, two years after cutting off its financial contribution to the organization over the admission of Palestinians as full members. The move undermined America’s ability to exercise its influence in numerous countries around the globe through the U.N. agency’s educational and aid programs, according to Western diplomats and international relations experts. Under UNESCO’s constitution, any country that fails to pay dues for two years loses its right to vote in the UNESCO General Assembly. Congress enacted laws in the 1990s decreeing that the United States stop providing money to any U.N. agency that accepts Palestinians as full members.

Lethal injections — The decision by manufacturers to cut off supplies of lethal-injection drugs, some of which had been widely used in executions for decades, has left many of the nation’s 32 death penalty states scrambling to come up with new drugs and protocols. Some states have changed their laws to keep the names of lethal-drug suppliers private as a way to encourage them to provide drugs. The uncertainty is leading to delays in executions because of legal challenges. The drug shortages and legal wrangling have led some officials to discuss older methods of execution like the gas chamber and the electric chair.

Gay marriage — Hawaii is poised to be among 16 states to approve gay marriage, along with Illinois and shortly after Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island. But the step in Hawaii has special resonance because the contemporary battle over same-sex marriage was born in the island state two decades ago. Such marriages existed nowhere when Ninia Baehr and Genora Dancel, along with two other couples, filed a lawsuit seeking a marriage license. To near universal shock, Hawaii’s Supreme Court granted them a victory in 1993, ruling that a refusal to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry was discriminatory and illegal.

Arafat death — The Palestinian official in charge of investigating the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004 renewed his accusation Friday that Israel had killed the Palestinian leader, even as he and a colleague acknowledged that recent inquiries had not found sufficient evidence to prove that Arafat was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. Tawfik Tirawi, the head of the Palestinian committee investigating the death, said at a news conference that Israel was the “first, fundamental and only suspect” in what he described as an assassination, although he did not provide any evidence to back that up.

Assad holding on — A growing number of Syrians on both sides of their country’s conflict, along with regional analysts and would-be mediators, are demanding new strategies to end the civil war, based on what they see as an inescapable new reality: President Bashar Assad is staying in office, at least for now. They say the insistence from the U.S.-backed opposition that Assad must go before peace talks can begin is outdated. Rather, they say, a deal to end or even ease the violence must involve Assad and requires more energetic outreach to members of his government and security forces.

CBS Benghazi story — CBS News admitted Friday it was wrong to trust a “60 Minutes” source who claimed to be at the scene of a 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the publisher of the source’s book on the incident has halted its publication. “There are so many people out there who have the potential to deceive a news organization,” said Jeffrey Fager, CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” executive producer on Friday. “We do our best and I think we do very well at spotting them. This time, I really feel like one got through and it’s extremely disappointing.”