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The European Union plans to end its embargo on arming the Syrian opposition, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday.

The Associated Press reports: "Hague insisted that Britain had 'no immediate plans to send arms to Syria. It gives us flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate.' "

The EU will continue its sanctions against Bashar Assad's government, which had been set to expire on June 1, Hague said.

"The decision came after lengthy talks in Brussels," the BBC reports. "Britain and France had been pressing to send weapons to what they call moderate opponents of President Assad. But other countries had opposed the move, saying it would only worsen the violence."

As we reported earlier, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who supports arming the Syrian opposition, met with rebels on Monday after crossing into the country from Turkey.

Arizona Sen. John McCain spent his Memorial Day in Syria. As NPR's Jonathan Blakley reports from Beirut, McCain's spokesman says the senator crossed into northern Syria from Turkey to meet with rebels in the country, ripped apart by the 2-year conflict turned civil war.

The Daily Beast reports McCain was with Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Free Syrian Army, and met with rebels for a few hours before going back to Turkey. The Daily Beast added:

"Idris praised the McCain visit and criticized the Obama administration's Syria policy in an exclusive interview Monday with The Daily Beast. 'The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,' he said. 'We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.' "

In the fall of 1945, my father was honorably discharged from the Navy. He was one of the lucky ones. He'd served on a destroyer escort during the war, first in convoys dodging U-boats in the Atlantic and then in the Pacific where his ship, the USS Schmitt, shot down two kamikaze planes. My dad always kept a framed picture of the Schmitt above his dresser, but, like most men of his generation, he didn't talk a lot about his war years.

One story he did tell me, because it haunted him, was about a shipmate who was lost on duty one night. That sailor had told the other guys on watch that he was going to the galley to get some cherry pie and coffee; while he was crossing the deck a wave smashed into the ship and washed him overboard. The captain, against regulations, ordered the ship's lights turned on to search for the sailor in the black waters. That poor guy was never found. Like I said, my dad was one of the lucky ones.

And how special he must have felt in late December of 1945, when a letter from Washington, D.C., came for him at his sister's house in Llanerch Hills, Pa. My father was living with his sister and her family because, by then, both of his parents had died. The letter, signed in fountain pen, was from the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal. It began:

My dear Mr. Corrigan:

I have addressed this letter to reach you after all the formalities of your separation from active service are completed. I have done so because, without formality but as clearly as I know how to say it, I want the Navy's pride in you, which it is my privilege to express, to reach into your civil life and to remain with you always.

In the classic American story, opportunity is always in front of you. You finish school, find a job, buy a home and start a family; it's a rosy dreamscape.

But that world is one-dimensional. Income inequality is just about as American as baseball and apple pie. And though the economy has improved in the past few years, the unemployment rate for black Americans, now 13.2 percent, is about double that for white Americans.

“ Whites disproportionally hold the best jobs, the jobs with the highest incomes, and we still live in a quite segregated society.