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August 23, 2012 | | CONFIDENTIAL In a massive document dump, Gawker has published 950 pages of confidential files related to Mitt Romney’s finances. The pages are internal documents from companies that accounted for more than $10 million of Romney’s assets in 2011. The Daily Beast’s Alex Klein sifts through the files and reports on what’s notable in the cache—and what to ignore. DEADLY Fighting continued in Syria on Thursday, with tanks and helicopters reported in Damascus as the United Nations monitors were expected to depart the country. Activists said that Syrian forces had fired mortar rounds on a Damascus suburb that overlooks the Qasioun mountain, with early reports of government troops going house to house to search for rebels. Hundreds have been displaced due to the fighting in Damascus as heavy fighting on Wednesday claimed an estimated 47 lives. The U.N., meanwhile, organized a Security Council meeting on Syria for August 30—the day that the last of the monitor are set to leave the country. STORM Watch The show must go on, right? As Tropical Storm Isaac barrels toward Tampa, the site of next week's Republican National Convention, an RNC spokesman confirmed that organizers have arranged "contingency plans" in case the impending hurricane should interrupt Mitt Romney's official acceptance of his party's nomination. The Daily Beast's Daniel Stone talks to Republican officials and meteorologists about what will happen in the worst-case scenario. BUMPY RECOVERY The number of people applying for unemployment rose last week to a one-month high, bringing back worries about a recession, according to figures released by the Labor Department on Thursday. Jobless claims rose by 4,000 to reach 372,000 in the period ending Aug. 18, with the four-week average—the less volatile number—increasing to 368,000. Analysts said employers may be keeping their companies lean with fears of a recession looming—not to mention the ongoing European debt crisis and a slowdown in Asia. But there have been some bright spots on the horizon: employers added 163,000 jobs in July, the biggest gain since February, according to the Labor Dept. numbers released earlier this month. DRUGS The death report for Rodney King was released Thursday, and TMZ has announced that it lists several substances that were in King’s system at the time of his death. According to the document, traces of alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and PCP were found. The PCP is “interesting,” TMZ says, as a theory surfaced at the time of his 1991 beating that Rodney “displayed superhuman strength because he was on PCP at the time.” (Subsequent blood tests, however, failed to confirm that theory.) King was discovered dead at the bottom of his pool on June 17. The report still lists “accidental drowning” as the cause of death. Here Comes Housing! New-Home Sales Up Year-over-year increase from July 2011 is 25.3 percent. | | 
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