The Senate's Syria hearing: Live updates  —  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is hearing testimony Tuesday about the potential use of military force in Syria.  Testifying are Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Hillary Clinton backs Obama on Syria  —  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backs President Barack Obama's move to urge Congress to back a targeted effort in Syria, in the first comments from her camp since the president unveiled his plan, POLITICO has learned.

Ariel Castro: Convicted Cleveland kidnapper/rapist found dead in cell  —  52-year-old convicted kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro was found hanging in his cell Tuesday.  —  Castro was being held at the Correction Reception Center in Orient, OH in Pickaway County.

The ‘Mysterious’ Disappearance of a Quotation Has a Mundane Explanation  —  Was a quote about a pro-Israel group mysteriously scrubbed from a New York Times story?  A number of online commenters, in blog posts and on Twitter, wrote Tuesday that a quote calling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee …

'They must be really bad if even Hitler wouldn't use them'  —  Richard Price is a political scientist at the University of British Columbia and author of “The Chemical Weapons Taboo.”  We spoke this afternoon about the history of the prohibition on chemical weapons, past efforts to punish violations …

FULL TRANSCRIPT: Kerry, Hagel and Dempsey testify at Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria  —  So I know today's focus is going to be largely on the issue of chemical warfare.  And I know that the case has to be made.  And I know that each of us have had the opportunity to hear that case …

Release Detail  —  September 3, 2013 - De Blasio Surges Past 40% In New York City Mayoral Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Quinn, Thompson Battle For Runoff Spot - If There Is One  —  With 47 percent of black voters and 44 percent of women voters, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio surges …

Smackdown: Governors Take The Battle Over Business Public  —  Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) are in what may be the most heated spat between one governor trying to poach companies from the other governor's state.  —  In the last week of August …

Book: Clinton's State told Benghazi was a ‘terrorist attack’ minutes after it began  —  WASHINGTON SECRETS HILLARY CLINTON SEPTEMBER 11 TERRORIST ATTACKS BENGHAZI TERRORISM  —  Just minutes after 35 jihadists crashed through the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, nearly one year ago …

Miley Cyrus, Steubenville and teen culture run amok  —  Miley Cyrus twerked.  I had to look up the word since my indefatigable spell checker had no idea what I meant.  I discovered from Wikipedia that twerking “involves a person, usually a woman, shaking her hips in an up-and-down bouncing motion …

65 Years Later, a Memorial Gives Names to Crash Victims  —  FRESNO, Calif. — A fiery plane crash here decades ago that killed 32 people, most of them unidentified Mexican farmworkers, inspired a protest song by Woody Guthrie that has been performed by Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, among others.

Bloomberg sues City Council to overturn law targeting stop-and-frisk profiling  —  Mayor Bloomberg kept his promise: He filed a lawsuit against City Council to overturn one of the two laws passed last month to curtail the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk program.

Ronald H. Coase, a Law Professor and Leading Economist, Dies at 102  —  Ronald H. Coase, whose insights about why companies work and when government regulation is unnecessary earned him a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1991, died on Monday in Chicago.  He was 102.

Android KitKat unveiled in Google surprise move  —  Nestle plans to sell more than 50 million chocolate bars featuring the Android mascot  —  Google is calling the next version of its mobile operating system Android KitKat.  —  The news comes as a surprise as the firm had previously indicated version 4.4 …