International

As the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan hits 400, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that fewer than 4% of the people killed have been identified by available records as members of al Qaeda

New reporting from the New York Times, published online late Tuesday, which reveals that though the administration of George W. Bush employed false claims of a chemical weapons program to justify its 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq (no such program existed), the reality is that substantial, largely forgotten and degraded stockpiles of older weapons did exist inside the country.

A surprising "boom" in oil and gas production, fueled (no pun intended) by fracking and pipelines, brought a surplus in barrels and lower prices for the first time in forever. Of course, that means less profit for the oil companies. So to ensure that the destruction of the world's natural resources benefits them and only them, they're sneaking language designed to lift a beneficial ban on oil exports into U.S. treaties – a new low for the industry.

In an effort to win support for its bombing campaign against Syria, the Obama Administration concocted a new terror threat—the so-called 'Khorasan Group'—and got the mainstream media to run with the story, according to reporting by Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain, published at The Intercept over the weekend.

President Obama, in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, cited "the cancer of violent extremism" in the Middle East as the single issue that could derail future global progress, and said six years into his presidency that the world is at a crossroads. He specifically called on Muslim communities in the region to confront the threat of extremism and reject such ideology.

Speaking at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, President Obama provides an update on the U.S. plan to help combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. President Obama says the U.S. will lead on fighting the ebola outbreak. He also says the probability of ebola spreading to the U.S. is low, but the country is ready to deal with it.

Is ISIS successfully manipulating U.S. politicians and media? Did the U.S. government threaten the families of the beheaded journalists if they paid the ransom allegedly demanded by the extremist group?

Ted Cruz went on CNN to talk about how he would deal with ISIS. Thank Allah this man is not our president. Let's hope he never is.

For a president criticized as overly cautious and reluctant to lead, Barack Obama is taking a huge risk. He is thrusting U.S. fighting forces into a growing military operation with clear dangers, unknown costs, an indefinite length and unpredictable consequences.

The Islamic State (IS) is now in possession of lethal weapons formerly owned by so-called "moderate" Syrian rebels, as well as large quantities of arms produced in the United States, a new report (PDF) reveals