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.

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 …

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.

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.

Pelosi: I Don't Want to Be Speaker Again  —  “No, that's not my thing.  I did that.”  —  D.C. is a wait-and-then-hurry-up kind of town.  After more than a month away, Congress returns to a full plate.  Legislators need to find a way—and quickly—to pass some kind of short-term budget and deal with the debt ceiling.

Poverty Has Same Effect On The Brain As Constantly Pulling All Nighters  —  The mental strain of living in poverty and thinking constantly about tight finances can drop a person's IQ by as much as 13 percent, or about the equivalent of losing a night of sleep, according to a new study.

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 …

The Unsaved World  —  The rupiah is falling!  Head for the hills!  On second thought, keep calm and carry on.  —  In case you're wondering, the rupiah is the national currency of Indonesia, and, like many other emerging-market currencies, it has fallen a lot over the past few months.