10 things you need to know today: August 26, 2014

Walter White and co.
(Image credit: (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

1. Obama approves surveillance flights over Syria

President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over Syria in a significant step toward greater U.S. involvement in the country's three-year civil war, Defense Department officials said Monday. The approval covers both flights by drones and U2 spy planes. The U.S. does not plan to notify the government of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Obama administration has called for Assad's ouster, and is trying to figure out how to strike ISIS rebels without helping Assad.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.