Under Pressure: Secy. of State John Kerry said yesterday that Syria’s dictator Bashar al Assad has to go and called upon Russia and Iran to help show him to the door. Syria’s continuing civil war is sending hundreds of thousands of refugee to Europe, causing international turmoil.

Kerry said, “We’re prepared to negotiate. Is Assad prepared to negotiate, really negotiate? Is Russia prepared to bring him to the table?”

Russia, in the meantime, has sent combat aircraft, tanks, and infantry to its new base at Syria’s Latakia airbase, a move that supports Assad.

White Smoke: After brokering the new relationship between Cuba and the United States, Pope Francis arrived in Havana yesterday to visit a country that declared itself officially atheist after the 1959 communist revolution. The Catholic church in Cuba is prohibited from running schools and hospitals and there are only about 350 priests in the country of 11 million people. The Pope visits at a time when the church is trying to become more involved with feeding and helping the poor while hoping for a loosening of the communist hand as Cuba starts to engage with the outside world.

Drachma Drama: Greeks are going to the polls today in a snap election called after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras lost popularity because he agreed to an austere financial bailout deal. Polling shows it’s tight between the left-wing incumbent Syriza party and the conservative New Democracy.

Feel the Bern: Democrat and socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders subjected himself to an interview by “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who said, “This man is a self-described socialist, which for me is awkward because tonight’s show is brought to you by capitalism.”

Colbert teased Sanders saying, “Filling stadiums in his 70s? Who does he think he is, a Rolling Stone?”

But Sanders, trying to stick to politics said, “If you look at the polls at me running against the Republicans, despite the fact that 20, 30, 40 percent of the people don’t know who I am or what I am fighting for, we do almost as well and in some cases better than Hillary Clinton does today, and that will only get better in the future.”

The Donald: Republican candidate Donald Trump, who seems incapable of saying or doing anything outrageous enough to hurt himself, defended his choice to not correct a supporter at a rally who said President Obama is a Muslim and not an American citizen. “Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don’t think so!” Trump said on Twitter.

I Heart Huckabee: Candidate Mike Huckabee condemned President Obama’s nomination of an openly gay man to be secretary of the Army. “It’s clear President Obama is more interested in appeasing America’s homosexuals than honoring America’s heroes,” Huckabee said.

Burned: Twitter user Jason Mayland has gone viral with his comment that, “If Carly Fiorina really wants to destroy Planned Parenthood, she should become its CEO.” Fiorina was fired for running Hewlett Packard into the ground.

The Obit Page: Jackie Collins, the bestselling British author who wrote “Hollywood Wives” and 31 other novels about romance and raunch, has died of breast cancer at age 77. She was the sister of the actress Joan Collins. Collins’ first book, “The World is full of Married Men,” was banned in some countries, which turned out to be a blessing for sales. Collins wrote books, not literature, but she ended up selling hundreds of millions of them in multiple languages around the world.

Wedding Announcements: The New York Post reports that actress Allison Williams of “Girls” was “secretly” married in Wyoming yesterday even though it can’t be a secret if we all know about it. She’s the daughter of deposed NBC News anchor Brian Williams.