The image John Kerry WON'T want you to see: U.S. Secretary of State pictured dining with Assad and his wife at Damascus restaurant before war broke out in Syria  —  This astonishing photograph shows U.S Secretary of State John Kerry having a cosy and intimate dinner with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

How not to run a foreign policy  —  In March 2011, President Obama committed the United States to action in Libya that involved roughly 100 cruise missile firings, 12 U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean, and 75 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft including B-2 bombers.

CITING OBAMACARE, 40,000 LONGSHOREMEN QUIT THE AFL-CIO  —  In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions.

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.'s  —  For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls …

Love for Labor Lost  —  It wasn't always about the hot dogs.  Originally, believe it or not, Labor Day actually had something to do with showing respect for labor.  —  Here's how it happened: In 1894 Pullman workers, facing wage cuts in the wake of a financial crisis, went on strike …

Rangel: 'Of course it's embarrassing'  —  Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Monday said “of course it's embarrassing” that President Obama warned Syria of a red line for using chemical weapons but then didn't move forward immediately with a military strike.  —  Rangel, who opposes a military strike …

Texas Republican: Evidence that Assad used chemical weapons is ‘thin’  —  A Texas Republican lawmaker said the evidence he saw Sunday at a classified briefing showing the use of chemical weapons by Syria's government was thin.  —  “Yes, I saw the classified documents yesterday.

CIA finds 1 in 5 flagged job applicants hail from Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda  —  An estimated one-fifth of a subset of all applicants for Central Intelligence Agency positions had significant ties to the terror groups Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, a newly released document from the Edward Snowden collection revealed Monday.

Diana Nyad's Cuba-to-Florida swim: Less than 10 miles to go  —  (CNN) — Diana Nyad was less than 10 miles shy Monday morning of reaching a goal she's been chasing for 35 years.  —  Nyad, 64, is on her fifth attempt to swim the 103 miles from Cuba to Florida without a cage, wet suit or flippers.