Disunited Nations: President Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin delivered clashing views on the Syrian crisis yesterday at the United Nations, with Obama taking a smack at Putin’s support of the dictator Bashar al-Assad “The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict,” Mr. Obama said. “But we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo.”

Putin said he sees it as a fight against terrorism, which might creep into his own country. “We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, which are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face,” he said.

Obama and Putin also met one to one. An indication of how it went: Obama refused to smile at Putin when he raised a toast at dinner.

Permawar: Afghan special forces are fighting to re-take the city of Kunduz, which was seized over the weekend by the Taliban. The government claims they are going building-to-building and inflicting heavy casualties. The Taliban’s taking of Kunduz was their first major victory since they were pushed out of power by the US 14 years ago.

Mars: The strange flowing dark streaks on Mars are water, NASA announced yesterday, raising the possibility that the planet might support microbial life. NASA’s Planetary Science Director James L. Green said at a press conference, “We haven’t been able to answer the question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ But following the water is a critical element of that.”

While Mars is believed to have once had lakes and possibly an ocean, the amount of water has been reduced basically to wet dirt. The water was identified through high concentrations of salt.

This announcement is a lucky coincidence for the producers of the new Matt Damon movie “The Martian,” in which he plays a stranded astronaut who starts farming on the red planet.

Nation: Former prison employee Joyce Mitchell, who helped two murderers escape from New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility in June, was herself sentenced to up to seven years in prison yesterday. Appearing in broad black and white prison stripes, Mitchell cried and begged the judge to release her to her family with an ankle bracelet, but instead she got the max.

>House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California promised a cultural change in Washington, announcing on Fox News that he’s putting his name in to become Speaker of the House. “It’s not going to be easy to change this culture and it won’t happen overnight, but that’s my mission.” Like the exiting John Boehner, the new Speaker would face a wing of the party that sees political compromise as weakness. But McCarthy said, “The system is created so you can’t get 100% of what you want. I think that’s probably good.”

Dead Man Walking: Oklahoma death row prisoner Andrew Glossip has lost his appeal for a new hearing. The state’s Court of Criminal Appeals says the state can proceed with execution tomorrow. Glossip has been appealing on the grounds of innocence, but he previously went all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost, challenging Oklahoma’s method of lethal injection.

Medical Miracle: Taller is better. The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, who has chronicled over the years how taller political candidates tend to win elections, has noticed that Hillary Clinton has grown two inches in the past eight years during a time in life when most people shrink. Clinton’s official height when she first ran for the Senate was 5-5, but running now for even higher office, her campaign says she is 5-7. “Hillary Clinton, a politician who grows on you.”

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