Bombs shatter shaky Syria truce

Two deadly car bombs and sporadic fighting marred a shaky holiday truce today in Syria, although thousands of protesters used the brief respite in the civil war to pour into the streets and demand president Bashar Assad’s removal.

Chants of “Syria wants freedom!” rang out in the streets in the largest demonstrations in months, suggesting that a 19-month-old crackdown and sustained violence has not broken the spirit of those trying to rid the country of Assad’s rule.