Intelligence for Dummies  —  Question for the day: Do you feel more secure or less secure, now that you know the government is keeping a gargantuan pile of information about everybody's telephone calls in the name of national security?  —  You have heard, I'm sure, that the National Security Agency …

Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program  —  SAN FRANCISCO — When government officials came to Silicon Valley to demand easier ways for the world's largest Internet companies to turn over user data as part of a secret surveillance program, the companies bristled.  In the end, though, many cooperated at least a bit.

Why I confronted the first lady  —  Ellen Sturtz is a retired public servant and an advocate for LGBT equality.  —  When Barack Obama was running for President in 2008, I thought he was serious about protecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from workplace discrimination.

Cleta Mitchell: How to Investigate the IRS  —  Cleta Mitchell, the attorney who helped expose the tax agency's abuses, has a road map for identifying the culprits.  It doesn't stop in Cincinnati.  —  Washington  —  The woman who helped expose IRS abuse of conservative activists has more news to share …

Santa Monica gunman killed father, brother, sources say  —  The two bodies found in a burning Santa Monica house - the starting point in a shooting rampage - are believe to be the brother and father of the suspected gunman, law enforcement sources told The Times.

GOP Poll: Massachusetts Senate Race a Statistical Tie  —  A Republican polling firm has found that the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate is in a dead heat.  Democrat Ed Markey, the longtime congressman, leads Republican and first-time candidate Gabriel Gomez by just a point.

REPORT: HOMESCHOOLING GROWING SEVEN TIMES FASTER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOL ENROLLMENT  —  As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so has the appeal of homeschooling.  Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a surge in the number of students educated at home …

Afghanistan: three Americans and one Italian killed in separate attacks  —  Two US troops and one American civilian are shot dead while Italian soldier dies in separate bomb attack on armoured convoy  —  Three Nato soldiers and a civilian have been killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan.

Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks: officials  —  (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Nelson Mandela admitted to hospital in ‘serious condition’  —  Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital with a lung infection.  —  The former South African president is in a “serious but stable condition”, a spokesman for the current president, Jacob Zuma, says.

As summit opens, Obama presses Xi on cybersecurity issues  —  President Obama said Friday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping “can work together” on key cybersecurity issues, predicting the nations could arrive at a “firm understanding” to help prevent intellectual property theft and hacking.