Becoming a father was a prime motivator for Randy Berry to accept what's sure to be a controversial new role at the State Department. Berry, 50, is the U.S. special envoy for the human rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender persons, the first such post ever created by a nation, according to the State Department. In that trailblazing role, he said he has an opportunity to help his two children grow up in a world more accepting than the one he was born into.

Last week’s unanimous vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on legislation allowing congressional oversight of a potential nuclear deal with Iran has been interpreted by some as a setback to President Obama. The opposite is the case. The fact is that the president’s patient and intricate diplomatic approach, along with other major world powers, to negotiating this historic agreement has gained real traction and it now seems highly unlikely that opponents of the deal could sabotage it through congressional action.

It is perhaps only an accident of history that three of the key actors in the diplomatic efforts to deny Iran a nuclear bomb are the 2004, 2008, 2012 and probable 2016 Democratic presidential nominees. But their intertwined ambitions provide a dramatic backdrop to the unfolding and unfinished story.

Nowhere is the contrast between Benedict XVI and Francis more tangible than in the degree to which the papacy seems to have recovered its diplomatic and geopolitical swagger. The normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba in December 2014 came about in part thanks to Francis, who wrote private letters to President Obama and Cuban president Raúl Castro that reportedly helped break the ice between the two leaders.

He wouldn’t put it this way, but Secretary of State John Kerry announced this week that the U.S. government will turn the screws on India over the country’s environmental record. In a joint event, the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency declared that they will install air pollution monitoring devices on more U.S. embassies around the world and release their findings. 

Barack Obama’s administration has come under withering criticism for failing to send a top U.S. official to Paris for a high-profile solidarity rally held after last week’s bloody terrorist attacks there. On Monday, Jan. 12, the White House admitted it made a mistake and scrambled to send Secretary of State John Kerry to France to help smooth over any bad feelings.