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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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world lead
Could the U.S. have done more to save James Foley?
(CNN) – Their brother was beheaded by terrorists. Now, the siblings of American journalist James Foley say more could have been done to save him from ISIS, and they hope more will be done to save another American hostage, Steven Sotloff.
"Even take the money aside, there's more that could have been done directly on Jim's behalf, and I really hope in respect to Steven, they do something quickly," Michael Foley told Yahoo! News.
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national lead
State Rep.: Obama coming to Ferguson wouldn’t help us get justice sooner
(CNN) – President Barack Obama has not visited Ferguson, Missouri, where violent clashes have erupted between protesters and police for nearly two weeks.
"The President coming here, it wouldn't necessarily do anything in terms of it helping us get to justice sooner," said Democratic State Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis.
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national lead
Key details missing in Ferguson police report
(CNN) – Nearly two weeks since unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white officer, Darren Wilson.
Only now are we getting a first look at the police report, and somehow the release of more information is adding more question marks.
There are still gaping holes where we don't know what happened. In fact, Gerguson police never even filed an incident report on the confrontation between Brown and Officer Wilson.
CNN's Evan Pérez reports.
world lead
Is Obama heading toward air strikes in Syria?
Washington (CNN) - After three years of avoiding it, President Barack Obama finds himself being pushed toward military action in Syria.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey both made clear that defeating Islamic State jihadists rampaging through northern Iraq would require going after them in neighboring Syria.
national lead
Experts: Uphill battle to convict Officer Wilson
(CNN) – It will be an uphill, obstacle ridden battle to convict the white officer, Darren Wilson, who shot unarmed, black teenager Michael Brown, according to legal experts.
"Often jurors are extremely sympathetic to police officers. They think even if he made a mistake, he's got the hardest job in the world. So they often want to cut police officers some slack," said former federal prosecutor Paul Butler, professor with Georgetown University Law School.
Meanwhile, there have been varying eye witness accounts of the shooting.
"Eye witness testimonies are notoriously unreliable," Butler said. "When we look at the false conviction cases, it's often because of eyewitness testimony that was just flat out wrong," he says.
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