The socialist Frenchman who formerly led the International Monetary Fund—accused of raping and chasing after a hotel maid—might go free from the palatial New York City penthouse where he's been confined. Prosecutors have acknowledged the accuser has "credibility issues," and by "credibility issues" I mean significant personal and financial ties to suspected drug runners.

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez surfaces after a medical scare with some bad news. He has the cancer. And Venezuela, where life has gone especially to seed in recent years, might ask Chavez to battle it from somewhere besides its executive mansion.

Cut-and-Paste Headline From Yesterday, Today, Part I: Libya's rebels battled Moammar Qadhafi's soldiers. Although, I reckon, the fact that fighting has reached the suburbs of Tripoli (does Tripoli have suburbs? I know it has shores?) is newsworthy.

Cut-and-Paste Headline From Yesterday, Today, Part II: Thousands of protesters are still massing in Syria, and soldiers loyal to Bashar al-Assad are still killing them.

China's "Communist" Party turns 90 years old. Critics say the graft-laden institution, which years ago became more fascist than socialist, is rotting from the inside. But the party was pretty boss: Hu Jintao reportedly served up a two-story cake made of smog and sadness, and frosted with mercury-and-feces-laden river water, after blowing out candles that turned out to be Shenzhen workers set aflame.

In noting that a South Korean dog-meat festival was canceled after animal rights activists shit themselves in rage, one precocious writer asks if it's really all that bad?

Illinois' Death Row, once home to an overwhelmingly high number of wrongfully convicted African-American men, is officially no more.

Cancer patients and other ailing people supposedly can continue to light up without the feds breathing down their necks, according to the justice department. But if your game is opening up a storefront or a warehouse or a giant farm, etc., Unca Sam will still rain holy hell down upon you, and so might an increasing number of state governments.

Yesterday's non-fatal Portland police shooting could have ended way worse: Live rounds were mistakenly loaded into the beanbag shotgun used in the incident, despite presumed safeguards against such a mix-up—something police officials say has never happened before.

The Oregon Legislature's 2011 regular session has adjourned. Here's one roundup of what all happened (a list, some might say, that was dwarfed by the list of what didn't).

STOP TALKING. IT'S ALMOST HERE. OKAY. HERE IT IS. IT'S OKAY NOW. YOU CAN TALK AGAIN. HAPPY CANADA DAY!