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• Still, it's impressive, given that records usually aren't broken until the scorching months of July and August.
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• ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey deployed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons alongside its border with Syria, state television reported on Thursday, days after the downing of a Turkish military jet by Syrian forces heightened the tensions between the two countries.
• A small convoy of military trucks, towing anti-aircraft guns, entered into a military outpost in the border village of Guvecci, which faces a Syrian military outpost across the border and where Syrian forces and rebels clashed in recent months, TRT television footage showed.
• Several anti-aircraft guns have also been deployed elsewhere alongside the border. Some trucks were seen carrying self-propelled multiple rocket launchers, TRT footage showed.
• Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Tuesday that any Syrian military unit approaching its border will be treated as a direct threat. Turkey's NATO allies have expressed solidarity with Ankara and condemned the Syrian attack but made no mention of any retaliatory action against Syria.
• The deployment came before President Abdullah Gul chaired a National Security Council meeting on Thursday, TRT said. The meeting, attended by Cabinet members and the military's top brass, is expected to focus on tensions with Syria.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hoping to avert the kind of headlines politicians dread, congressional leaders are aiming for final passage by week's end of legislation reshaping federal transportation programs and preventing a doubling of interest rates for millions of new student loans.
• Without action by Saturday, federal authority to conduct road, mass transit and other transportation programs would end, along with the government's ability to collect gasoline and diesel taxes that fund most of those programs, costing what Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said would be 3 million jobs. Democrats and Republicans

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