Five men convicted in a recent wave of high profile domestic terrorism cases are now in special communications management units (CMUs) in the American Midwest, where their conversations are monitored 24 hours a day by counterterrorism analysts at the U.S Bureau of Prisons in West Virginia.

A new analysis by NPR's Investigations unit shows several new arrivals into the secretive CMU units, based in Terre Haute, Ind. and Marion, Ill.:

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford was on his way to meet an opposition figure, when government supporters threw stones, eggs and tomatoes at his convoy.

The BBC reports:

Veteran politician Hassan Abdul Azim said about 100 protesters tried to get into his office as Mr Ford arrived and then surrounded it. Mr Ford, who has been accused of inciting protests, was trapped inside the building for at least two hours.

Dakota Meyer, the Marine sergeant who received the Medal of Honor this month from President Obama at the White House, has turned down an opportunity to apply to be a New York City firefighter. The city's application deadline expired on Sept. 19 and Meyer — who was honored at the White House on Sept. 15 — missed the deadline. His attorney asked whether New York could briefly re-open the application process and a federal judge agreed — but only if Meyer was the sole applicant.

That's why Meyer said no thanks.

Bahrain's special security court handed down a death sentence Thursday for a protester who killed a policeman at an anti-government rally and gave lengthy sentences to doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters.

A government statement said the man was given the ultimate penalty for "intentionally" hitting the officer with his car. Another defendant who faced the same charges received life in prison.

Earlier this year, the same special court sentenced two other protesters to death for killing a police officer in a separate incident.

Thousands of craft beer makers, distributors and just plain beer fans are descending on downtown Denver Thursday for the start of the annual Great American Beer Festival.

The event's 40,000 public tickets sold out in just a few days — an indication of how well this growing industry is doing even in a poor economy.

Nearly 150 small craft breweries have opened their doors in the U.S. this year, including Pateros Creek Brewing Co. in the craft beer mecca of Fort Collins, Colo.

More details are emerging about the alleged plot and the alleged would-be terrorist who the FBI says planned to attack the Pentagon and Capitol Building with explosives-laden small aircraft and thought he had given devices to al-Qaida operatives that could be used to kill U.S. soldiers stationed overseas.

"Pakistan has freed a senior al-Qaeda commander, who served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden," Britain's The Telegraph reports, citing a "senior security source."

CBS News says it has been told the same thing by "two senior Pakistani police officials."

The nation's economy grew at a slow 1.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis just reported. That's a slight upward revision from the agency's previous estimate of 1 percent growth vs. first-quarter 2011.

Good morning.

Earlier, we passed along word about:

-- Reports: Saudi King Cancels Lashing Sentence Against Woman Who Drove

-- Baseball Stunners: Red Sox, Braves Suffer 'Big, Historic' Collapses

Other stories making headlines this morning include:

"African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Wednesday on CNN's The Situation Room. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."