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Politico - An L.A. Times report has some contending that the academy could pose health risks to students.

AP - An Indonesian volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air Tuesday, dusting villages 15 miles (25 kilometers) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.

The Atlantic Wire - On Labor Day, president Obama rolled out a plan to save jobs that included $50 billion for infrastructure. The Wire already brought you the debate on the political savviness of the move, and whether such a stimulus would be likely to pass. But there's also the practical question: what effect would spending $50 billion on infrastructure actually have? Commentators seem to be divided into three camps: one group endorses the move, one backs the general idea of infrastructure spending but thinks this proposal is too little, too late. A third camp is against the proposal entirely, opposing the economic theory behind it and the cost.

AP - AOL is adding talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres to its family of Web properties as it looks for ways to draw more people to its sites.

AP - The U.S. government's financial commitment to Afghanistan is likely to linger and reach into the billions long after it pulls combat troops from the country, newly disclosed spending estimates show.

AP - ABC News President David Westin, the longest-reigning network news division chief, with more than 13 tumultuous years on the job, told his staff Monday that he is resigning and will leave by the end of the year.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority Tuesday after winning the backing of two key independent MPs in the first hung parliament in decades.

AP - Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.

AP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard will lead Australia's first minority government in 67 years after two independent lawmakers threw their support behind her center-left Labor Party on Tuesday, ending two weeks of uncertainty left by national elections that ended on a knife-edge.

AP - Oracle Corp. has hired former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd to help lead the database software maker in a pivotal moment in Oracle's 33-year history as it tries to muscle in on more of HP's turf.

AP - The influx of foreign aid after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake significantly increased survivors' trust in the West, according to new research that also suggests hard-line Islamist charities did little to help despite the publicity they generated.

Reuters - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard secured a wafer thin parliamentary majority on Tuesday, ending a political impasse but hardly cheering investors worried about the fragility of her government and its plans to tax mining profits.

AFP - US President Barack Obama has pledged 50 billion dollars to create jobs in a massive transportation infrastructure campaign, targeting huge unemployment and ripping resurgent Republicans.

Politico - The latest surveys show a rising anti-incumbent tide that may mean trouble for Dems in November.

AP - Steel columns salvaged from the rubble of the World Trade Center are heading back to ground zero.

AP - The U.S. government's financial commitment to Afghanistan is likely to linger and reach into the billions long after it pulls combat troops from the country, newly disclosed spending estimates show.

AP - A determined Republican stall campaign in the Senate has sidetracked so many of the men and women nominated by President Barack Obama for judgeships that he has put fewer people on the bench than any president since Richard Nixon at a similar point in his first term 40 years ago.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AP - Already in distinctive company as an American president, George W. Bush seeks to join an even more select group: president and top-selling author.

CQPolitics.com - While serious Democratic observers worry whether their party can somehow hang on to 218 seats in the House, more than a few Republican strategists and neutral observers have become convinced that the GOP is on the cusp of a stunning victory that could at least equal the party's 52-seat 1994 gain.