No Quick Deal, but Offer by G.O.P. on Debt Shifts the Tone  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama and House Republicans failed to reach agreement on a six-week extension of the nation's borrowing authority during a meeting Thursday at the White House, but the two sides kept talking …

NBC/WSJ poll: Shutdown debate damages GOP  —  The Republican Party has been badly damaged in the ongoing government shutdown and debt limit standoff, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that a majority of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown, and with the party's popularity declining to its lowest level.

C.I.A. Warning on Snowden in '09 Said to Slip Through the Cracks  —  WASHINGTON — Just as Edward J. Snowden was preparing to leave Geneva and a job as a C.I.A. technician in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man's behavior …

EXCLUSIVE: Just 51,000 people completed Obamacare applications during the website's first week, out of tens of millions of Americans in 36 states  — Obamacare's main signup engine attracted just 6,200 new customers on its launch day and 51,000 after the first week

Obama Should Just Give in to the Republicans  —  President Obama should give in.  Yes, this mess is all the Republicans' fault.  Yes, it's outrageous that they can hold the government hostage in order to reargue a law that's been voted on, signed, enacted, and upheld by the Supreme Court.

Blackfeet Elder Says Rick Reilly Misquoted Him; Wants ‘Redskins’ Banned  —  There are a few things I'm passionate about in life, and one is to share the true history of how our people have overcome the trauma of 150 years of attempts to erase the Blackfeet people.

Reminder: Finishing the Removal of an Old Search Setting  —  Last year we announced the removal of an old setting called “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” along with new controls for managing content on Facebook.  —  The search setting was removed last year for people who weren't using it.

Scott Carpenter, One of the Original Seven Astronauts, Is Dead at 88  —  M. Scott Carpenter, whose flight into space in 1962 as the second American to orbit the Earth was marred by technical problems and ended with the nation waiting anxiously to see if he had survived a landing far from the target site, died on Thursday in Denver.

Dealing With Default  —  So Republicans may have decided to raise the debt ceiling without conditions attached — the details still aren't clear.  Maybe that's the end of that particular extortion tactic, but maybe not, because, at best, we're only looking at a very short-term extension.

The Last Days of the GOP  —  We could be witnessing the death throes of the Republican Party  —  I once wrote about lobbying, and this week I called some Republicans I used to talk to (and some that they recommended I talk to) about the effect the shutdown is having on the Republican Party in Washington.

Chemicals weapons watchdog OPCW wins Nobel Peace Prize  —  (Reuters) - The global chemical weapons watchdog charged with overseeing destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile during a civil war won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.  —  The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons …

PolitiFact to launch PunditFact, checking pundits and media figures  —  PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times, will soon launch PunditFact, a site dedicated to checking claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers and the hosts and guests of talk shows.