Unclassified Syria briefing exposes rifts among key lawmakers  —  Thursday night's briefing by top Obama administration officials exposed divisions among key lawmakers on what to do in Syria.  —  Lawmakers on the unclassified conference call said the officials made it clear that President Obama …

David Miranda was carrying password for secret files on piece of paper  —  A journalist's partner who was detained carrying thousands of British intelligence documents through Heathrow airport was also holding the password to an encrypted file written on a piece of paper, the government has disclosed.

White House, Republican senators give up on budget talks  —  The Obama administration and a group of Republican senators abandoned efforts Thursday to hammer out a budget deal and avoid a showdown over the national debt, saying they had failed to resolve their long-standing dispute over taxes.

What ‘The Butler’ gets wrong about Ronald Reagan and race  —  Steven F. Hayward, Paul Kengor, Craig Shirley and Kiron K. Skinner are Ronald Reagan historians.  —  One cold evening in Dixon, Ill., in the early 1930s, a young man known as Dutch Reagan brought home two African American teammates from his Eureka College football team.

Facebook Post Said to Be by Assad's Son Dares Americans to Attack  —  A Facebook post said to be written by the 11-year-old son of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and “liked” or commented on by several people who appear to be the children and grandchildren of other senior members …

DNI Clapper Directs Annual Release of Information Related to Orders Issued to Telecom Providers Under National Security Authorities  —  August 29, 2013  —  In June, President Obama directed the Intelligence Community (IC) to declassify and make public as much information as possible …

Alabama Republican Wants to Ban Toni Morrison's ‘The Bluest Eye’ from Schools  —  Bowing to Tea Party pressure, Alabama State Senator Bill Holtzclaw said this week that he thinks The Bluest Eye, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's novel about a little black girl who wishes for blue eyes, should be banned in schools.

New Neighbor's Agenda: White Power Takeover  —  LEITH, N.D. — The bearded man with thinning, gray-and-bleach-blond hair flapping down his neck first appeared in this tiny agricultural town last year, quietly and inconspicuously roaming the crackly dirt roads.

Leading Democrats, de Blasio Has Broad Support as Primary Nears  —  Frustration with New York City's unaffordability and its aggressive police tactics is elevating Bill de Blasio, once dismissed as a left-leaning long shot, into the lead of the Democratic mayoral primary field …

Global Warming Slowdown Data Sought in Leaked UN Climate Report  —  U.S. and European Union envoys are seeking more clarity from the United Nations on a slowdown in global warming that climate skeptics have cited as a reason not to “panic” about environmental changes, leaked documents show.

Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet of Soil and Strife, Dies at 74  —  Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet whose lyrical beauty and ethical depth won him the Nobel Prize in 1995 and gave him a prominence far beyond literary circles, died in Dublin on Friday after a brief illness, according to a statement issued on behalf of his family.