Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013  —  The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013.  We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack.

In News Coverage and Editorials on Syria, How Much Skepticism in The Times?  —  Many Times readers are looking at recent news coverage of Syria, and editorials on the same subject, through the lens of another international conflict: the United States invasion of Iraq.

Liz Cheney: ‘I am not pro-gay marriage’  —  Wyoming Senate hopeful Liz Cheney said bluntly on Friday that she is “not pro-gay marriage.”  —  Cheney, who is mounting a Republican primary challenge to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), made the remark in a statement, which is posted on her website.

Ginsburg will be first justice to officiate at same-sex wedding  —  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will become the first Supreme Court member to conduct a same-sex marriage ceremony Saturday when she officiates at the Washington wedding of Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser.

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.

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.

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.

Standing Together for Greater Transparency  —  General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft  —  To followers of technology issues, there are many days when Microsoft and Google stand apart.  But today our two companies stand together.

Some News and Thanks  —  I will soon pass the Twitter General Counsel torch to Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya).  Vijaya has been managing Twitter's corporate and international legal work, and I've gotten to know her well over the last fourteen years.  I couldn't be happier with her appointment as General Counsel of Twitter.

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.

Ted Nugent's wife forgot her gun was in her bag at DFW Airport, lawyer says  —  FORT WORTH — The wife of rock guitarist Ted Nugent was “embarrassed” and apologetic after being arrested Thursday for carrying a handgun into a terminal at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, her lawyer said.

C'mon teachers.  There's some room to give  —  SOME PEOPLE might stop speaking to me after this column appears.  —  One of them may be my sister.  —  My sister is a high-school teacher in another state, who, in early August, went to her classroom to start setting it up for the next school year …