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It's become conventional wisdom that President Obama's new lead in the polls is a bounce, coming out of the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C.

But an analysis from the Wesleyan Media Project suggests that the bounce might be due to TV ads as much as grand speeches. The Obama campaign and its allies laid out $21.1 million for TV during the two weeks of the party conventions. Over that same stretch, Republican Mitt Romney and his backers spent significantly less, $12.9 million.

Americans donate billions of dollars to charity each year, and a portion of that money is raised by telemarketing solicitations.

Some of those charitable contributions are solicited by InfoCision Management Corp., an Ohio-based telemarketing company that, on its website, claims to raise more money for nonprofit organizations over the phone than any other company n the world.

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From Rahm Emanuel now to his formidable foe in these negotiations, Karen Lewis, the head of the teachers' union. Lewis in recent weeks has called the mayor a bully and of his leadership style has said, quote, "The whole idea of an imperial mayoralty where you wave a magic wand or cuss someone out and things happen is untenable."

To learn more about Lewis, we turn to Joel Hood. He's a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Welcome, Joel.

JOEL HOOD: Thanks for having me.

For months, the tax-exempt Crossroads GPS has argued that its anti-Obama ads were merely issue ads and not political ads. No more. Today the group went up with ads explicitly telling viewers to vote against President Obama.

Co-founded by Republican operative Karl Rove, the group began running a 30-second spot Wednesday morning in Nevada that blames a weak economy and poor housing market on Obama and ends with the wording: "This election ... don't blow another vote on Obama."

In 2011, the poverty rate in the United States remained steady and the number of uninsured Americans decreased, the Census Bureau said today. That means that more than 46 million Americans lived below the poverty line last year.

NPR's Pam Fessler filed this report for our Newscast unit:

Over jeers and cheers from the audience, commissioners on the Portland, Ore., City Council voted Wednesday to add fluoride to the city's drinking water starting in 2014.

Portland is the largest American city that doesn't add fluoride to its drinking water. But some groups have raised questions about the possible risks from fluoridation and oppose its use.

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It didn't take long for the attacks in Benghazi and Cairo to become part of the presidential campaign. Mitt Romney jumped in first. In a statement last night before Ambassador Stevens' death had been announced, Romney accused President Obama of sympathizing with those who waged the assault. The Obama campaign responded, saying it was shocked that Romney would launch a, quote, "political attack" at this moment. And the politics have continued today as NPR's Mara Liasson reports.

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We'll hear more from Secretary Clinton in a moment, but first to Benghazi and to Reuters' Middle East correspondent, Hadeel Al-Shalchi, who's been trying to piece together what happened.

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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

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And I'm Audie Cornish. British Prime Minister David Cameron apologized today for a pattern of lies and official cover-ups over Britain's worst sporting disaster. Ninety-six soccer fans were crushed to death at the Hillsborough Stadium in the city of Sheffield in 1989 and then falsely blamed for the disaster. Vicki Barker reports from London.