NPR News

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan used an appearance at an annual gathering of his party's social conservatives Friday to pointedly criticize President Obama's foreign policy record and to testify to his own Catholic faith and opposition to abortion.

"We're all in this together," said Ryan, a representative from Wisconsin, echoing a theme of Obama's convention speech. "It has a nice ring."

The Brits are in the middle of another scandal involving a semi-nude royal: After issuing a strong condemnation, the royal family said it would sue a French magazine for publishing photos of a topless Duchess of Cambridge.

The Duchess, if you're not a royal watcher, is Kate Middleton, Prince William's wife and ostensible the future queen of England.

A squadron of Chinese patrol vessels has turned back from a tense standoff with the Japanese coast guard near a small group of islands claimed by both countries.

The uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, known to Japan as Senkaku and to China as Diaoyu, have been the subject of a decades-long dispute between Tokyo and Beijing.

Update at 3:00 p.m. ET. No Settlement Expected Today:

NPR's Ken Barcus says that no settlement is expected today. The most likely scenario is a contract vote sometime on Sunday, he says.

The Chicago Tribune reports quotes a union attorney who said that the outlines of an agreement are there, but a vote on ending the strike is not likely until Sunday.

Our Original Post Continues:

In an election that's supposed to be about the economy, tragic deaths overseas push foreign policy onto the political stage in the race between Mitt Romney and President Obama. While Romney seems to have lost the initial battle, questions remain about the administration's Middle East goals.

Join NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin for the latest "It's All Politics" roundup.

Our impulse to share intimate details about our lives within our social networks (and even sometimes with complete strangers) seems to know few bounds.