Libya's rebels say they have more than 10,000 fighters surrounding Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte and are waiting for the order to attack.

The rebel officials say that order will be given this Saturday. But over the next few days, they will try to negotiate the peaceful surrender of Sirte, the last major bastion of Gadhafi's forces.

Today is Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. Except that it isn't.

Today, many Muslims in the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are celebrating Eid. Meanwhile, many Muslims in Indonesia, South Africa, India and Oman are not celebrating Eid until Wednesday.

We had to read on after spotting this line atop a BBC News story today:

"A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial 'alkaline hydrolysis' unit at a Florida funeral home."

And just what does that involve? As the St. Petersburg Times explained last October:

This month, 66 U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan. According to The Associated Press that makes August the deadliest month in the nearly 10-year-old war. The previous record was in July 2010, when 65 service members were killed.

August's number includes the 30 American troops killed on Aug. 6, when insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter.

The AP reports:

David "Honeyboy" Edwards, considered to be the last of a generation of musicians who brought music from the rural Mississippi Delta to the rest of America, died at his home in Chicago early Monday morning. He was 96 years old.

Honeyboy Edwards was born in 1915. He grew up in segregated Mississippi during Jim Crow. Though his dad was a share-cropper, the young Edwards did not work in the fields.

While Libya's ultimate fate is still unclear, the past week has marked a decisive change. In a speech to the American Legion in Minneapolis Tuesday, President Obama praised "our brave forces who helped the Libyan people finally break free from the grip of Moammar Gadhafi."

The last five months brought a great deal of controversy and criticism to the White House's handling of Libya. Now the administration is claiming some vindication.

The two top leaders of the large field of Republican presidential hopefuls have gotten a warm welcome this week from the friendly crowd at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both boasted of their admiration and support for the military in their speeches, but they sidestepped attacks on each other, saving their vitriol for President Obama.

Now that Hama has been crushed and demoralized, Homs is emerging as the center of anti-government activity in Syria, as protesters have taken up arms to conduct targeted operations against security forces and the army.

U.S. researchers knowingly breached medical ethics by infecting Guatemalans with venereal diseases in the 1940s without informing them of the risks, a presidential commission has found.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, which was asked by President Barack Obama to investigate the Guatemalan study in October 2010, came to the conclusion after learning that the researchers had conducted similar research with American prisoners in 1943 but had given them the chance to make informed consent.

Vermont's National Guard began mobilizing helicopters and heavy equipment Tuesday to airlift food, drinking water and other essentials to about a dozen towns cut off by flooding in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

Days after the massive storm cut a treacherous swath across 11 states, hundreds of roads and scores of bridges remained impassable in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. In some cases, those roads and bridges were the sole access routes in and out of rural or coastal communities.