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during turbulent times, when the obstacles to governing a deeply divided nation seem nearly insurmountable.
• Every year on Aug. 4, the president's birthday, Obama convenes a group of pastors by phone to receive their prayers for him for the year to come. During the most challenging of times, prayer circles are organized with prominent religious figures such as megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights activist.
• And each morning for the past five years, before most of his aides even arrive at the White House, Obama has read a devotional written for him and sent to his BlackBerry, weaving together biblical scripture with reflections from literary figures like Maya Angelou and C.S. Lewis.
• "I've certainly seen the president's faith grow in his time in office," said Joshua DuBois, an informal spiritual adviser to Obama who writes the devotionals and ran Obama's faith-based office until earlier this year. "When you cultivate your faith, it grows."
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• ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- As authorities search for two convicted killers freed by bogus paperwork, questions linger about who created the legitimate-looking documents that exposed gaps in Florida's judicial system.
• Within days of walking out of prison, Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, who had been sentenced to life, traveled about 300 miles to a jail an Orlando and registered as felons. They signed paperwork. They were fingerprinted, and they were even photographed before walking out of the jail without raising any alarms. Had one of the murder victim's families not contacted prosecutors, authorities might not have known about the mistaken releases.
• "We're looking at the system's breakdown, I'm not standing here to point the finger at anyone at this time," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said Friday as he appealed to the public to help authorities find the men. He said he believed they were still in the central Florida area.
• In light of the errors, the Corrections Department changed the way it verifies early releases and state legislators promised to hold investigative hearings to figure out how the documents -- complete with case numbers and a judge's forged signature -- duped the system.

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